A TEENAGER came to the rescue of frustrated motorists after lights in a busy road broke down - by grabbing a hi-vis jacket and directing traffic himself.

When 17-year-old Tom Bensted set out on his driving lesson at 10am this morning, he found temporary traffic lights guarding roadworks outside his home in Farm Hill Road, Waltham Abbey, had jammed on red.

Returning an hour later to find cars were still backed up, and with no workers on-site, the student decided to take matters into his own hands.

To the astonishment of drivers, he donned his dad's neon running jacket, stepped into the road and spent the next 90 minutes directing traffic.

"I wasn't really doing anything so I grabbed a hi-vis jacket. What else do you do?," said Tom, who studies IT at Epping Forest College.

"It was clear there was going to be an accident and I figured it was probably best to make sure there wasn't.

"I was just helping people get on with their day and stop the gridlock."

After an hour on the job, the tired teenager was grateful to see police approach the scene.

"First of all the police came along towards Round Hills. They stopped at the lights there and turned around and drove off," he said.

"They came around 15 minutes later, pulled up and asked what I was doing and why I was doing it.

"They said 'you shouldn't be doing that' and I said 'what else is supposed to happen?'

"I guess I'm not supposed to direct traffic - I haven't got the training."

The officers told the former Davenant Foundation School pupil they would 'make some calls'.

"They made some calls and then they drove off," he said.

"I guess they hadn't got the training either."

Tom said he was surprised - but continued in his post for another half an hour.

"I did get quite a few thank you waves," he added.

"They've also decided to do some road works on Honey Lane. Heaven knows what I would have done if they had gone out."

He eventually stood down when traffic management company TMO Traffic arrived to fix the lights.

An Essex Police spokesman said: "At the end of the day, we haven't got the power to move him because he's not committing an offence.

"We can only give him safety advice. We would have alerted the Highways Agency.

"We probably had to leave him because we had a call to go to."

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