This is the terrifying moment a driverless truck left in the wrong gear crashed into a shop in Thailand.

CCTV footage shows the Hino six-wheeler loaded with soil rolling across an intersection in Chiang Mai province on November 28. It slammed into a car and smashed through the entrance of a restaurant.

Police later arrived and cordoned off the area for safety. There were no injuries reported.

Truck driver Sunthorn Chuaychan said he was delivering soil to Chiang Mai University when the accident happened. He claimed he had engaged the handbrake and parked the vehicle in neutral gear to buy some food from a stall across the road.

He said: 'I have only been driving the truck for a short time. I have never encountered any issues with it before.'

He added that an investigation was ongoing for insurance purposes.

Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in Asia, Thailand suffers from chronic underinvestment in its highways and education, 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.