AN 18-year-old driver was killed on Tuesday when the car he was driving ploughed into the back of a road maintenance lorry on the A3 about a mile south of Petersfield. A team from the Independent Police Complaints Commission was immediately called to the scene as it emerged that the crash was linked to an earlier incident in the centre of Liss. As The Herald went to press the name of the teenager had still not been released. A police spokeswoman said formal identification could not take place. Due to the injuries sustained by the victim, she said, his family could not identify him and DNA testing was being carried out. But the man was believed to have been driving an Audi and is thought to have been from the Selborne area. The car, which burst into flames on impact, was so badly damaged that onlookers could not tell the make or the colour after the crash. Mystery still surrounds the events running up to the accident, which took place on the southbound dual carriageway by Queen Elizabeth Country Park. A huge response team rushed to the scene shortly after the accident and closed off a section of the road as firefighters tackled the blaze. The car, which was believed to have been clocked by a police helicopter travelling at speeds of up to 125 mph before the accident, had flipped onto its bonnet and rested against the diversion sign on the back of the lorry. At least 17 police vehicles, scores of policemen and fire engines from Petersfield, Horndean and Copnor in Portsmouth, rushed to the accident. Roadblocks were quickly set up stopping traffic joining the southbound carriageway at Petersfield and Buriton. Queues of traffic had to be turned round on the A3 and redirected, causing major traffic jams throughout the day and evening. Police have revealed few details following the incident. A police spokeswoman told The Herald: "Always, when there is an earlier police involvement before something like this happens, the IPCC is brought in to investigate because the police have to be seen to have an open and transparent investigation." The police have issued the following statement: "Hampshire Constabulary has made a mandatory referral to the IPCC following a fatal crash on the southbound A3 yesterday morning, January 24. "At 10-11 am, a car was in collision with the rear of a lorry, near to the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, south of Petersfield. "At the request of Hampshire Constabulary an IPCC investigation team attended the scene of the collision, following police interest in the vehicle prior to the crash. "The incident has been linked to an incident at Liss train station. At the moment the circumstances of the incident cannot be confirmed, as this forms an integral part of the investigation. "The IPCC will be making a decision into the mode of investigation in due course." Earlier in the day, eyewitnesses at Liss reported police activity in Station Road, where a large police vehicle was said to be parked in a layby close to the station at around 7 am. Witnesses said the van remained in position for more than two hours. At around 10 am there was an incident involving a police vehicle and another car in Station Road, and the area around the scene was cordoned off." A police spokesman told The Herald: "The area has been closed to the public while a search is carried out further to a collision involving one vehicle and a police car." This incident is believed to have taken place just minutes before the fatal accident on the A3. Eyewitnesses in Liss said police returned to the village around 1 pm and set up a road block. One villager told The Herald: "Station Road was open until around 1 o'clock. It was then blocked off by a police vehicle, which parked across the road by the level crossing on the side of the village, and at the other end, from The Bluebell pub down, nobody could get through. It was unblocked around 5 pm. Two houses opposite the Madhuban Tandoori restaurant were cordoned off by police." Another told The Herald: "Four police vehicles, a big police van, a collision investigation vehicle, forensics, eight to 12 police officers with bulletproof vests on their hands and knees were crawling across the road and a police photographer taking lots of pictures. The entire road was cordoned off with tape. "They were also searching the ground next to the NFU. The police said that all of this was in connection with an incident on the A3." Traffic congestion continued on the A3 southbound as rush-hour traffic returned home in the evening. Police did not reopen the road until the early hours of Wednesday.