Tractor Crash

A man has died after the car he was driving was involved in a head-on collision with a seven-tonne tractor in Dorset, police said.

Fire crews were called after the car, a blue Peugeot 306, and the tractor both burst into flames following the crash on the B3159 at Gould's Hill, near Weymouth.

The driver of the Peugeot, a man in his 30s from Dorchester, was trapped in the wreckage and died from his injuries. The tractor driver, a local farm worker, also in his 30s, was not seriously injured but did suffer extreme shock, police said.

Officers closed the road while Dorset County Council's highways unit carried out an inspection of the road surface.

The tractor was towing a three-and-a-half tonne combine harvester hay bale trailer at the time of the collision.

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David Urpeth from law firm Irwin Mitchell said: "Road traffic accidents involving agricultural vehicles are often serious or as in this sad case fatal, due to the size and weight of the equipment.

"The risks posed by farming vehicles increases both at certain times of the year (e.g. harvest time) and of course in rural areas.

I have represented many people who have been injured or killed in road crashes."