Thieves jammed a stolen car in gear and dived out, leaving it to plough into railings, fire chiefs said today.

The unoccupied silver Honda Accord travelled about half a mile at speed across open land in Bradford Moor before going down a banking and hitting a fence at Kismet Gardens.

Firefighters who attended the smoking car at around 9am today condemned the act as a threat to public safety.

Phillip Whitaker, station officer at Bradford Fire Station, said he had not come across anything as serious as this and called on parents to help stamp it out.

"What they are doing is stealing a car and jamming it in gear with a metal bar to the throttle and diving out, letting the car run riot.

"Judging by the tracks on the field, it had travelled half a mile and ran into metal railings at substantial force.

"If this had been a timber fence it could have gone through and caused a very serious incident."

He said he had known of vehicles being left to roll down hills and hoped this was not a new trend among schoolchildren in the summer holidays.

"Do parents know what their teenagers are doing? This is the sort of thing we would come across in an evening but this happened at 9am on a Monday morning."

Councillor Ghazanfer Khaliq (Lab, Bradford Moor) said: "It is outrageous behaviour. Anybody doing this is putting the life and safety of local people at risk.

"Burning cars is not a new occurrence here but this is the first time I have heard of this type of incident and I call on the police to take strong action."

Police were called to the scene by a concerned resident after the car was left badly damaged front and back and abandoned.

A police spokesman said: "We cannot confirm what happened because when we got there there was nobody in the car.

"But we are investigating and appealing for witnesses to come forward."

Anyone who has information is asked to call Bradford North police at Toller Lane on (01274) 376259.