A crash witness last night described how a car flew through the air and nearly landed in Hamilton Harbour.

"It looked like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,'' Penny Watlington told The Royal Gazette.

She added the woman driver would have been thrown through the windscreen and perhaps even drowned - without a seat belt. The jeep was also stopped from going overboard by a piece of wall.

It is the third accident recently along the winding Harbour Road in which vehicles have almost ended up in the water.

The accident happened in Paget at about 4.15 p.m.

Mrs. Watlington said the woman was not speeding, but the back of the jeep began vibrating and then the car flew up and over and hit the wall.

"There were chunks of two by two sized pieces of the wall in the air and the car was sailing in the air as well - it looked like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," said Mrs. Watlington, who was still somewhat shaken.

"The noise was like an explosion. My husband ran for towels and I ran over to the car and pulled her out and she only received a cut finger - and I think she got that when she was being pulled from the car.

"I hate to think what would have happened if she had not been wearing her seat belt - she just hit a wet patch on the road.

"I believe, I was more upset than she was - I was shaking like a leaf.

"If she had not swerved to the right - she would have killed me."

Mrs. Watlington said that although the woman was not speeding at the time of the accident, she said that all too often people came throttling down the Harbour Road and the road just was not wide enough.

She said: "People go by here at 60kph, just whizzing by and hardly anyone slows down there on the strip coming from town - two cars can't pass at one time.

"The message is cars, bikes and trucks need to slow down on Harbour Road - my neighbours wall was just repaired and ours got hit on the weekend.

"It's too often that heavy trucks come barreling down the road and it is dangerous."