Collision on ‘death crossing’ sparks anger
A PEDESTRIAN footbridge is to be built at a “death crossing” used by students on the Lefkoşa-Gazimağusa road, after the latest collision to take place there sparked anger.
Students of Haspolat’s Cyprus International University (CIU) protested that there had been several accidents at the spot, where street lights had been “out of order for months” and they had to use a badly marked pedestrian crossing over the 100kph-speed-limit dual carriageway to get to and from campus.
The latest collision on Tuesday came when a car slowed down to allow someone to cross and was struck by a following vehicle. Fortunately there were no casualties.
CIU announced on Wednesday it had secured funding from the Turkish Embassy for construction of a bridge, and was in contact with the Transport and Public Works Ministry about it.
Earlier, four cars were involved in a “concertina” crash nearby, when a driver stopped to avoid a ball of wind-blown straw on the road between Hamitköy and Haspolat.
Police said Safiye Gürkut,72, stopped to let husband Hüseyin, 78, get out to look at the obstacle on Sunday. Tayyar Yıldırım then crashed into the back of their vehicle.
Forty-two-year-old pregnant driver Feray Salar stopped her car, but she too was hit from behind by Savaş Şişik, 53, the impact pushing her car into Mr Yıldırım’s and trapping Mr Gürkut between the front two cars. After being freed, Mr Gürkut was treated for a broken leg and other injuries.
A cyclist and a scooter rider delivering food were both injured when they collided on Raif Denktaş Caddesi in the Göçmenköy area of Lefkoşa on Tuesday night. Scooter rider Yusuf Yıldız and Nigerian cyclist Chumnaecherem Percy Edom, were treated in Lefkoşa State Hospital.