POLICE have come under fire for making an “irresponsible” social media post after a car crash in Southampton.

A car flipped on its roof following the collision, which brought traffic to a standstill on Millbrook Road West on Wednesday morning.

Emergency services rushed to the scene and the driver of the vehicle had to be extricated by firefighters before being taken to Southampton General Hospital.

But Hants Road Policing has been criticised for posting a picture of the badly-damaged vehicle and asking social media users to guess whether the car was a Hyundai or a Vauxhall Corsa.

Twitter users reacted angrily, with one writing “Is this tweet really appropriate?” while another said “A game out of a crash? What’s next, did the driver/cyclist/pedestrian live?”.

 

 

Others described the post as “shocking” and a number said they had reported the post to Twitter.

The policing team pointed out that the driver was not hurt and said the post was highlighting the potential dangers of driving.

It said: “Getting some negative replies to crashed car tweet. We were simply trying to show the impact of a crash. We didn’t mean to offend.

“The driver was not injured in this incident. We were trying to highlight how much a car can be damaged in a crash.”