A grandfather feared for his life as a hit-and-run lorry driver rammed his motorbike off the road.

Bill Ryan, of Kingfisher Close, Colchester, will be off work for four months after the truck slammed into him three times and forced him to drive into a crash barrier.

He believes he owes his life to two passers-by who spotted his headlights as he lay unable to move in the roadside undergrowth.

Doctors told the removals worker that two of his ribs had been snapped and were floating free - one just a centimetre away from puncturing his lungs and the other a millimetre from his spleen.

Mr Ryan, 53, was riding home from work in London at 4pm on December 12 when he noticed the articulated lorry was close behind him on the ramp from the M25 to the Brook Street Interchange, at Brentwood.

It then rammed him at about 20mph, but he was unable to get out of the way as another truck was in front of him.

When it crashed into his 1100cc Honda bike a second time he was swept past the exit to the A12, where he wanted to turn off, and the third impact sent him hurtling towards the barrier.

He said he deliberately accelerated into it, as he was convinced the truck would crush him to death if he failed to clear the obstacle.

"The lorry just drove on as if nothing had happened," Mr Ryan said: "I was conscious the whole time but I couldn't move."

The father-of-three and grandfather-of-one said he was convinced he had been deliberately rammed, but could think of no-one who would want to harm him.

The only possible explanation he could offer was that the driver was a rival football supporter and had spotted his personalised West Ham number plate.