A lorry's brakes failed and rolled backwards on a sloped motorway in Thailand.

The ten-wheeler was waiting for the red light stop at an intersection when the brakes reportedly malfunctioned in Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, on April 9 afternoon.

CCTV footage shows the truck moving in reverse and dragging backwards a white Honda Civic sedan in its rear.

Onlookers tried to stop the vehicle by wedging pieces of wood on its wheels, but it was too heavy.

Onlooker Winai Nilrat, 40, said: ‘The ten-wheeler truck and the sedan were stopping for the red light before the truck went backwards on the hill, likely due to the air in the brake booster running out.

‘It crashed against the sedan while the passengers tried to escape.

‘The truck continued further and was headed towards crashing into the traffic island and electricity pole in the middle of the road, but the driver managed to evade them all.

‘I was filling the air into my motorcycle tyres, so I quickly got on my motorcycle and directed oncoming cars to evade to avoid danger.

‘Fortunately, the traffic at that time was not crowded, so there was not much damage.'

The truck rolled backwards for more than 1.5km before it finally halted in the ditch on a roadside.

No one was hurt, but the Honda car was damaged by being dragged by the truck.

Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in Asia, Thailand suffers from chronic underinvestment in its roads and pavements, contributing to its poor road safety levels. Only a handful of African countries are worse.

Thailand has one of the world's worst road safety records. Ministers have set the goal of reducing fatalities from 32.7 deaths per 100,000 people to 12 per 100,000 people by the year 2027.

However, a lack of road safety education in schools along with notoriously easy driving tests, police failures to enforce road laws, and chronic under-investment in infrastructure, all appear to hamper the efforts.