A young man died in a violent smash against a lamppost on Route Twisk Sunday morning

A 23-year-old driver died after skidding sideways into a lamppost at high speed on the notorious Route Twisk early on Sunday morning.

The fatal crash happened at 7:07am when Mr Chan was driving his Honda Civic north along the twisting mountain road.

According to police, Chan lost control of the vehicle while overtaking another car just ahead of a sharp bend, with Chan’s car then ramming into a lamppost sideways. The force of the impact and the momentum of the vehicle folded the car almost in two, trapping Chan in the cabin.

Emergency crews freed Chan and raced him, unconscious, to hospital, where he died at 10:15am.

Inside Chan’s wrecked car. Radar detection devices are common in racing circles and can be bought in computer markets for just a few hundred dollars

Images from inside Chan’s wrecked car show a small electronic device likely to be a radar detection unit: these cheap electronic devices are used to detect speed camera or radar traps and can be purchased freely across town.

An SCMP report recently found racing groups commonly employed scouts and radar detection devices to evade speed traps.

Police would not speculate on whether speed was a factor in the crash, but a high-level police source says “no racing activity was revealed”.

A day earlier, cycle track users in Tai Po had a lucky escape when a driver lost control of a Lotus Exige coming out of a roundabout. The rear bodywork was smashed completely off as the wrecked car spun rear-first onto the cycle path. No cyclists were caught in the crash and neither the driver or passenger were hurt.

The driver of this Lotus Exige lost control and spun the sports car onto a Tai Po cycle track: no serious injuries were reported