I am beginning to think that Richard Hammond has a death wish. That or he is the most incredibly accident prone man around.

Just three years ago, the Top Gear presenter suffered brain damage after crashing a dragster racing car at almost 300 miles per hour. Yesterday he was involved in a four car pile up, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage to his £110,000 Morgan AeroMax.

An eyewitness told The Daily Mail: ‘Someone braked sharply in front of him and then a number of cars went into the back of each other.

‘Richard was at the back of the line and he received no damage to his rear end but the front was in a pretty bad way.

‘Everyone got out and exchanged details and there was some good-humoured banter exchanged by the drivers after they realised it was him.’

A BBC spokeswoman said: ‘Richard was involved in a minor collision and nobody was hurt.’