A DRIVER was unwilling to let an "idiot" who had tailgated him along a motorway slip road undertake him, so he sped up and was involved in a crash that left the other driver "lucky to be alive", a court has heard.

Shaun Smith was on his way home from a training course in Aldershot, driving his black Volkswagen Golf along the slip road between the M3 and A303 in March 2020, when Stuart Townsend decided to tailgate him in his blue Skoda Octavia in the overtaking lane.

Rather than moving back to the inside lane and allowing the "lunatic behind [him to] get out of the way", prosecutor Janice Brennan said that Smith had acted dangerously in applying his brakes.

When Townsend moved to the outside lane and attempted to undertake him, she told Winchester Crown Court that he sped up and matched the speed of the other driver.

And it was seconds later when the Skoda had caught up with slower moving traffic that Townsend veered across into the front of the 45-year-old's Golf, flipping his own car and ending up on its roof in a ditch on the side of the carriageway.

Smith pleaded not guilty to one count of dangerous driving and was put on trial on Monday afternoon.

Miss Brennan admitted that it was Townsend who had "started it" and was responsible for the "main blame", but said that both men had driven dangerously.

Addressing the jury, she said: "I suspect looking at the twelve of you that each and every one of you knows how to drive a car. You will know that sadly from experience not every driver drives in a competent, safe manner.

"There are idiots on the road, and you will encounter them from time to time, if you are lucky at a distance, if you are not lucky a bit too close for comfort.

"What does a competent, safe driver do in circumstances where there is an idiot right behind you, far too close? You may think an obvious answer is you do not pick a fight with that idiot behind you.

"Sadly, as you will see in this case, Mr Smith was not prepared to give way to Mr Townsend behind him.

"Neither man [was] prepared to let the other man win.

"Is it male testosterone? Who knows.

"Would it have been different had it been two female drivers? Who knows."

The court heard that when police arrived on the scene of the crash, at Junction 8 of the M3 on March 2, 2020, Smith had told officers that "it was a bit of a case of chicken".

He said he "couldn't go anywhere", which Miss Brennan said was incorrect as "there was room for him to" move over.

Jurors were also shown dashcam footage captured by a motorist on the slip road at the same time, after which Smith, of Malpass Down in Worthy Down, admitted in hindsight his driving was "reckless" and that a sensible driver would have just let the Skoda pass.

He told the court: "My perception was that I would be immediately behind another car, and then having to pull right.

"Seeing the dashcam it is very clear that I would have to pull right again. I was waiting to get past the other cars. I wouldn’t say there was plenty of it, but there was space.

"I was doing the speed limit, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I was maintaining course.

"I can see it was reckless but I didn't consider it to be dangerous."

Smith added that his tapping of the brakes, which he denied was a brake test, made him drop from travelling at 70 miles per hour to 60mph.

He went on to say that when Townsend had pulled level with his car, he was shouting and making rude hand gestures in his direction.

"I can see he is pretty angry, he’s calling me a w*****, making a hand signal, he speeds up which is when I realise his intention," he continued.

"It is my belief his intention [was] to cut me off, [which] is the reason I sped up, I wasn’t particularly keen on that. [I was] nervous. I didn’t know what he was going to do next."

The trial continues. Smith denies the charge of dangerous driving.