It's an incredible tale of fate after a Lancashire van driver tells of his escape from a horror crash after some telling advice from a policeman.

Rick Pilkington from Samlesbury says he owes his life to a policeman who stopped him for not wearing a seatbelt.

He was fined 60 pounds and warned if he crashed with no belt on he'd more than likely be killed.

Rick said "Just out of laziness, you so easily slip into bad habits, before I knew where I was never wearing a seat belt at all, I was just getting in and driving."

Just a month later he was involved in a smash on the M6.

He was driving up the M6 coming back from Stratford upon Avon at 3 o'clock in the morning when in was ramming off the carriageway on his side an up the embankment.

He was knocked unconscious but woke up and managed to crawl out the front window.

Rick recalled the strange twist of fate that was to follow.

"The first guy who got out of the first police car walked up to the embankment to me and said to me and said don't I know you from somewhere?

And it was PC Dave Dunn the same police officer the fined me sixty quid for not wearing my seatbelt.

So the moral of the story is Dave Dunn and my seat belt saved my life"

He's in no doubt he wouldn't have survived if it weren't for the belt

"For certain I wouldn't have survived that crash. I found the hat that I'm wearing today 30 feet further forward in front of the van. I'm pretty sure had I not been wearing a seat belt my head would still be attached to the hat."

According to figures realeased today almost a quarter of all the people who died on Lancashire's roads in the last two years were not wearing their seatbelts.

Safer Lancashire hope stories like Rick's will remind more people to belt up when getting behind the wheel.