12 dead in UK, Irish 'wrong-side' crashes

Twelve people have died in less than a week in accidents in England and Ireland involving cars being driven the wrong way on major roads, amid a social media trend for "wrong-side" driving.

Seven people including two serving police officers died early Saturday in a crash on the main A66 road near Middlesbrough in northeastern England, police said.

Authorities are investigating the exact circumstances but said the collision followed a pursuit of a suspicious vehicle which ended up being driven the wrong way and colliding with a police car that was on the correct side of the road.

It comes after a fatal crash in Ireland on Sunday in which five teenagers died.

Their car had been travelling the wrong way on the M9 motorway west of Dublin when it collided head-on with a another vehicle, leaving four people in the second car, including a child, seriously injured.

The accidents come as authorities have highlighted a social media-driven trend for "wrong-side" driving.

After Sunday's fatal crash, Ireland's taoiseach (prime minister) Micheal Martin said it was the latest in a series of incidents involving vehicles driven on the wrong side of motorways.

"There can be no tolerance for this reckless behaviour that we have seen on our roads recently. It must stop," he said.

Police chief Justin Kelly said it followed a similar collision on Dublin's M50 motorway and warned that "what makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media".

The M50 crash, a week earlier, involved a stolen vehicle carrying teenagers that was driven the wrong way, causing multiple serious injuries.

In another incident earlier in August, footage filmed inside a stolen car while it was being pursued by police also emerged on social media.