A woman was shocked after her tyres were left covered in MELTED tarmac while driving home during the heatwave.

Stunned Louise Hanley first released something was wrong when she noticed large clumps of the B3302 road had disappeared in front of her.

Falmouth Packet:

She said handling then became difficult so she limped her car to home - but was stunned to find her wheels covered in broken up parts of the road.

Her car was taken into the garage where mechanics told her they had never seen anything like.

Louise, of Hayle, Cornwall, was driving to Leedstown to look after her horse at about 5pm on Monday as temperatures soared to around 30 degrees.

Falmouth Packet:

She said: "It's a stretch of road I travel twice a day, and it's safe to say nothing like this has ever happened before.

"I was stuck in a line of slow moving traffic, behind a tractor, and it sounded as if I was driving through water.

"I noticed the road has chunks of tarmac missing where previous drivers had been, but 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. Thinking I'd punctured a tyre I limped to the yard I keep my horse at where I jumped out to see the damage.

Falmouth Packet:

"Both passenger side tyres were completely covered in melted tarmac. 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 overexaggerating so asked me to pop over so they could have a look.

"When I got to the garage they were gob-smacked as they had never seen anything like it."

Louise said about five of the guys working there came out to have a look and eventually decided they might be able to scrape most of it off whilst it was still hot.

She added: "They did a really good job with the front tyre but the back tyre was harder to clean. They advised I drive back slowly and see if the tarmac came off on its own, but to call them straight away if i was worried.

"It's two days in now and the tyres still have quite a bit of bitumen on them but most of the stones have come away.

"Hopefully I won't have to buy new tyres but I will be popping over later today to get the guys at Thomas Autotec just to check they are safe to drive with."

ENDS