TRAFFIC Police chief Theodoros Achilleos yesterday urged drivers over the long holiday weekend to make sure they respect traffic laws in order to avoid chaos on the roads.
“Drivers should watch their speed, wear their seatbelts and, of course, avoid alcohol. In addition, we urge all motorcyclists to wear their crash helmets and everybody must pay particular attention to dangerous overtaking.”
The plea to exercise more care comes with the death toll on the island’s roads currently standing at 58 this year.
Achilleos said a lot of extra traffic was expected over the weekend as people headed out of the cities to coastal and mountain areas.
“Additional measures are therefore required and motorists will notice a significant increase in the number of patrols on highways and other roads, who will be controlling and directing traffic. There will be 250 patrols from this morning until Monday night, when we expect most drivers to return. In fact, we believe the busiest times on the road will be between 4 and 8pm on Monday.”
He went on to say that there had been no traffic fatalities for the corresponding period last year, “and we very much hope it will be the same again this year and implore drivers to comply with the traffic regulations so we can achieve this aim.”
Andreas Paphitis, Famagusta Divisional Commander and ex-traffic police director, told the Cyprus Mail that the state “had failed in its mission to prevent fatal accidents, even though the number of accidents involving serious and light injuries had been cut by 40 per cent compared to last year.
Unfortunately, we failed with fatal accidents,” he said.
He assured, however, that police were not going to give up on efforts to cut road deaths.
“I assure you that we won’t put our hands up and police efforts will continue until they bear fruit,” he added.
“We wish drivers safe trips so that they can have a happy August holiday weekend not only this year, but also in the many years to come.”
Over a dozen people were injured at the beginning of May in traffic accidents over the Easter holidays, the most serious of which wounded nine people in what police described as a “serious head-on collision”.
Recent research by Britain’s RAC Foundation suggests that more than two million motorists in the UK are putting their lives at risk by never checking their tyre pressure or tread and it’s fair to assume that a comparable percentage of motorists in Cyprus pay similarly little heed to the state of their car’s rubber.
It’s been estimated that six per cent of all fatal motorway accidents are caused by the sudden failure of under-inflated tyres, and worn tyres contribute to 10 per cent of accidents in the wet.
Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, said, “tyre safety is not an optional extra. Tyres are the only contact that the car has with the road and therefore it is essential that they are not worn or under or over inflated.”
It’s believed that 3,000 people are killed on the world’s roads every day.
