This is the shocking moment ‘idiot’ boy racers held up an entire motorway as their huge convoy of cars stopped in the road before drivers sat on their vehicles to take selfies.
A stretch of the M60 near Denton, Greater Manchester, was brought to a complete standstill by the car enthusiasts on Sunday as they clogged up all three lanes, with some pulling up on the hard shoulder.
The clip shows drivers at the front of the jam jumping out of their cars to take photos, with one climbing on top of his Range Rover and another even using the central reservation to get better shots.
The group had been involved in a car meet – organised by YouTuber DMODeejay, who can be seen standing at the front of the crowd with his arms outstretched – attended by thousands over the weekend, where social distancing was completely abandoned.
Police have made no arrests but described the scenes as ‘quite frankly unacceptable’, while insisting they had no prior knowledge of the event.
DMODeejay claimed subsequently the group only stopped to check he was okay as his car ‘overheated’, but thousands condemned the ‘dangerous’ and selfish’ actions on social media.
The car meeting, which started 73 miles away in Telford, Shropshire, was organised by YouTuber DMODeejay who can be seen, left, standing at the front of the crowd with his arms held wide while being filmed, as dozens of cars are forced to stop behind, right
The YouTuber, pictured, claims that the convoy stopped only because everyone was worried about him as his car overheated and wanted to show ‘support’
The car meeting, which started 73 miles away in Telford, Shropshire, was organised by the YouTuber, who said he knew ‘it was going to be a shutdown but a shutdown on a small scale’.
On his social media, the self confessed ‘qualified nutter’ claimed that 20,000 people had taken part in the two meets, including many young children, and had travelled between the two cities.
The video, which was originally posted to TikTok before being uploaded to Facebook by someone not part of the meet, has been lambasted by fellow car enthusiasts who slammed the crowd for giving the whole scene a ‘bad name’.
There was also criticism for the mother who filmed the stunt, even featuring her own children in the car, and bragged about what a ‘mad feeling it was to be part of’ the event.
The Facebook post read: ‘Typical UK car ‘enthusiasts’: blocking the motorway because its [sic] cool. So sick of all this entitled bulls**t attitude car people have.
‘I am massively into cars and understand the passion but these sort of actions give us all the bad views people have of us. Stop giving the general public more reasons to dislike us!’
DMO Deejay said: ‘I know people are saying ‘it was erratic, you shouldn’t have done it’, who knew it was going to be like that?
‘I never knew. I knew it was going to be a shutdown but a shutdown on a small scale. That was huge.
‘I’ve been working on my car since I bought it. The car is nearly where it needs to be but there are some niggly, little bits that need to be swapped over.
A number of drivers got out of their cars to take selfies on Sunday, left, while one man even precariously stood on the central reservation to get pictures
One driver even sat on top of a Range Rover while others stepped out to take selfies, left, as traffic spilled onto the hard shoulder, right
‘The radiator is blown and doesn’t work properly. I have no fan on the car and driving it 100 miles up the road to get it finalised, the car was overheating.
‘I pulled over and because we were in such a deep convoy, they all stopped too. At the time I wasn’t thinking about them, I was thinking my car was about to blow up, I needed to pull over.
‘By the time I looked back, there were more than 500 cars behind me, just stopped.
‘It was a moment, the support was unreal. They all wanted to make sure I was ok. It wasn’t planned.
‘I broke down. I let it cool down on the side of the road.’
But those watching the footage appeared unconvinced that the ‘hold up’ was anything other than deliberate.
One commenter said: ‘F***ing idiots. Hope they all get fines or points for being thick as f***.’
Another wrote: ‘I just saw a load of people in shiny modern things taking selfies and being a bunch of d***s.
‘I hope the police get hold of their details and fine them. What seriously was the point in that!’
A third added: ‘This is why people hate the car scene.’
Social media users slammed the car enthusiasts for their actions in a series of angry posts
The car meet caused severe delays not just on the M60 but also on the M67 and M66 due to the amount of traffic.
At the time North West Motorway Police tweeted: ‘M60 J24 both anticlockwise and clockwise we have heavy congestion – this is due to an apparent car meet off the motorway network.
‘It is however impacting around M60, M67, M66 – we are getting numerous re vehicles using the hard shoulder at speed, please take care.’
Greater Manchester Police confirmed they are investigating an illegal car cruising event in the area but no arrests have yet been made.
Superintendent Jane Higham, of GMP’s Tameside district, said: ‘The scenes that were posted on social media of the car event in Denton on Sunday [19 July] afternoon were quite frankly unacceptable and we are committed to finding out how this incident came to be.
‘The disruption caused by the large gathering of people and the volume of traffic wreaked havoc across some of the main routes in the town and impacted the nearby motorway network.
‘This disregard for the rest of the public is shocking and will not be tolerated.
‘While I completely understand and empathise with the many people affected by this event and concerned with our response, it is important to recognise that we only became aware of the event once it had begun and the risk posed to our officers and the wider public by trying to intervene after this was considerably enhanced.’
Alarming footage from the meet near Denton on Sunday showed large rows of cars being lined up near an industrial estate, with several members of the public not wearing face masks nor conforming to any sort of social distancing.
Witnesses compared the event to ‘bonfire night’ and a Formula 1 race due to the popping of cars.