A mother said her children are too afraid to play outside after a 4x4 tore through five gardens and crashed inches away from their house.

Samantha Valentine-Rugg believes her daughter Abigail, 12, and son Ethan, six, are lucky to be alive after a driver left a trail of destruction in Plough Lane Close, Wallington, on August 18.

The driver, a woman in her mid-50s, miraculously suffered only minor neck injuries and the passenger, a woman in her mid-30s, was unhurt.

Police, paramedics and fire crews were all sent to the scene after the car careered off Plough Lane, crashed through a fence and plunged down a verge into the gardens.

The driver was not arrested and the 4x4, which it was initially feared could roll into the house, has since been removed from its perilous position.

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But Mrs Valentine-Rugg, 40, said the car’s collision course had left a lasting impact on more than just her garden. The mum-of-two wants transport bosses to install road barriers or speed bumps to prevent similar crashes in the future.

She said: “My children are terrified to go out and play in the back garden and I don’t blame them.

“They are scared to sleep at night in their rooms. Two or three times now our son has come and slept in our bed, which he hasn’t done since he was three. His room is at the back of the house and he says he’s scared a car will come through the wall.

“He really has lost his confidence and it’s not like him at all and it has really dropped since the accident.”

“It doesn’t help that since the accident he can hear the traffic more easily now through the gap where the car came through and the lorries can be very loud and it frightens him.”

She added: “This has been an accident waiting to happen. Cars come over the bridge too fast and might not know there is a sharp bend in the road. This is the worst that has happened, but we’ve had a few near misses in the past.

“This has happened before in 2008 and 2010 and I don’t know what Sutton Council are waiting for. Me and my neighbours have written to Tom Brake to see what can be done about it.”

A Sutton Council spokesman said: “The council has no specific traffic calming and speed reduction measures proposed for Plough Lane at present, although the road is on our reserve list of sites for review.

“Changes to borough roads are generally not made as a result of a single incident but are monitored over longer periods.

“The sites with the worst accident records are prioritised for further investigation and possible scheme development, subject to funding availability.”