Road surface melts onto woman's tyres in record heatwave leaving mechanics gobsmacked

Louise Hanley from Hayle, Cornwall compared her short trip to "driving through water" after the Met Office expressed particular concern for public safety in parts of southwest England

The heatwave caused tarmac to melt onto one driver's wheels (Image: Louise Hanley / SWNS.COM)

A woman has shared shocking images of her car's tyres after the heatwave caused parts of the road's surface to melt onto them.

Louise Hanley, of Hayle, Cornwall, was driving to check on her horse last Monday as temperatures in the UK continued to soar.

The Met Office issued its first "extreme heat warning" with the southwest and South Wales being singled out as areas of concern.

Louise described driving on the roads during the heatwave as like "driving through water" shortly before she noticed "large chunks" of Tarmac had come away where previous drivers had been on the road.

Louise said travelling on the melted road was like "driving through water" (Image: Louise Hanley / SWNS.COM)

Louise told CornwallLive: "It's a stretch of road I travel twice a day, and its safe to say nothing like this has ever happened before.

"I didn't think much else of it until the tractor pulled over and I saw huge clumps of Tarmac stuck to his tyres. I moved past slowly but realised something was quite wrong almost straight away as my steering was shaking quite drastically if I went anything over 30mph."

Louise said: "Both passenger-side tyres were completely covered in melted Tarmac" (Image: Louise Hanley / SWNS.COM)

After making it to the yard where she keeps her horse Louise was surprised to find she had not punctured her tyre as suspected but parts of the tarmac had actually melted onto the tyres.

"Both passenger-side tyres were completely covered in melted Tarmac," she said. "I phoned my garage straight away and asked what to do.

"They had no idea what I was describing over the phone, and probably thought I was over-exaggerating, so asked me to pop over so they could have a look."

When Louise arrived at the garage even the mechanics were "gobsmacked" by the novel situation.

"About five of the guys working there came out to have a look and eventually we decided that we might be able to scrape most of it off whilst it was still hot."

Cornwall is not the only affected area as reports of roads melting "like chocolate" have surfaced in other areas of the country.

Councils in Gloucestershire and Somerset have scrambled to fix roads melting in the scorching temperatures.