Man caught on video seemingly 'watching TV' as he drives along the M1 in Northampton

Emma Bazeley, 44, from St Crispin, was being driven northbound on the M1 by her partner when, near junction 15, a dark-coloured saloon car swerved across its lane towards them.

Her partner took evasive action and kept his distance but soon pulled alongside. The couple were then shocked to see that the driver had fixed to his windscreen his mobile phone, which was playing a video or streaming TV.

Emma said: "I thought 'are my eyes deceiving me?'.

"Then I said, ' Oh my God, he's watching a TV programme'.

"He did not have a clue what was going on around him. He was driving erratically and swerved over the line, he nearly hit us.

"He was going right up to the speed limit and then slowing down."

At that point, Emma decided to film the inside of the other car as evidence.

She said: "Even when we are alongside him, he doesn't even notice until my partner beeped his horn.

"The look of shock on his face was a comedy gold moment."

Emma has uploaded the video footage to a police website.

A spokeswoman for Northamptonshire Police said: “In six seconds at 60mph, a car travels just over 160 metres – that’s over three Olympic-size swimming pools where the driver has absolutely no idea of what’s happening in front of them. Can you imagine what can happen in that time?

“As part of #DontStreamandDriveDay on Tuesday we were reminding road users that watching a video whilst driving is both an offence and extremely dangerous – to both the people in the vehicle and to other road users.

“Anyone caught doing so faces police action and we would encourage anyone who witnesses this type of behaviour to contact us and report it.”