Top TC rally driver collides with car, three injured
A TOP Turkish Cypriot rally driver was among three people injured in a head-on collision on Tuesday.
Ömer Yıldız, 35, was at the wheel of an “off-road vehicle” when he collided with a car driven by Mehmet Toprak, 20, at around 3.30pm, police said.
The two had been driving on a dirt track near Dikmen which is used as a special stage for rallies.
The drivers were taken to Lefkoşa State Hospital along with Amy Öznedim, 19, who had been a passenger in Mr Yıldız’s jeep.
Mr Yıldız, a former TRNC rally champion who has accumulated numerous titles and podium finishes over a career stretching back more than 10 years, was later transferred to the private Near East University Hospital.
Elsewhere on the roads, two lorry drivers had lucky escapes when their vehicles overturned.
Hüseyin Nizam, 59, was unhurt when his container wagon ploughed into a streambed at Esentepe at 5.20am on Tuesday, demolishing roadside crash barriers and telephone poles.
Ömer Bozkurt, 56, was slightly injured when the water truck he was driving rolled down a 13-metre slope between Haspolat and Taşkent at 9.15am on Sunday.
The incident prompted vehicles expert at the Chamber of Mechanical Engineers Ayer Yarkıner to demand an investigation into how a former construction truck had been allowed to be converted into a water tanker.
“What would have happened had the driver died, or the vehicle had crashed into other cars and caused deaths? If it had insurance, what was it insured as?” he asked.
There were narrow escapes, too, for van driver Görkem Yulaç, 19, arrested on suspicion of drink-driving after overturning his vehicle in old Lefkoşa’s narrow Tanzimat Sokak last Saturday, and Kemalettin Bingöl, 51, who reportedly fell asleep before crashing head on with a minibus in Karaoğlanoğlu at 8.30am last Friday.