A MAN was left lying in the road having suffered serious injuries after a late night hit and run crash.

The pedestrian was struck by a car in Southchurch Road, Southend, shortly before 11.20pm on Saturday night.

The driver of the car, which is described as being dark in colour, failed-to-stop at the scene.

The victim, a man in his 40s, was taken to hospital for treatment on fractured vertebrae, a punctured lung, and a ruptured diaphragm.

His injuries are being described by police as life-threatening.

Martin Terry, councillor for community safety in Southend voiced concerns of the regularity of such incidents.

The independent member said: “This is the third such incident in south east Essex in a month and it is deeply disturbing.

“One of the impacts of the police cuts is the cut to road policing, and we need to start to look at that.

“This sort of criminality is completely unacceptable and we need to clamp down on it.

“I think we need the courts to be sending out a strong message with the heaviest possible sentences.”

Police are now appealing for witnesses to the crash to come forward.

The officers need to speak to anyone who saw the incident or may have dash cam or CCTV footage of it and, in particular, are extremely interested to trace the movements of a dark-coloured Audi A5 between 10pm on Saturday and 8am yesterday.

Anyone who has any information should call police on 101 quoting incident 1360 of 14 December or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

n A-22 year-old man from Great Wakering was arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, failing-to-stop at the scene of a collision, and failing to report a collision.

He has been released under investigation.