Lucky escape for Paphos family when truck overturns outside their house

By Bejay Browne Published on March 10, 2010

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A PAPHOS family had a lucky escape yesterday morning after a truck carrying a heavy load of wood skidded onto its side and crashed into the wall of their house.

The accident caused extensive damage to a car and the truck, but luckily came to a grinding halt before it smashed through the wall of the building.

Emergency services rushed to the scene and the shaken driver was taken to Paphos general hospital. Amazingly, He escaped with only minor cuts and bruises.

The accident happened in a busy area close the Paphos to Limassol highway and next to Konia roundabout. All main roads in the area were closed to traffic including the main road, which leads towards Paphos general hospital.

Traffic came to a standstill whilst emergency services cleared the scene.

Chief of Paphos traffic police Zenon Psathitis told the Cyprus Mail,’ it appears as if there were three factors involved in this incident which all contributed towards the accident. It was partly due to speed, the weight of the load of wood and the camber of the road.’

According to Psathitis, the driver was not arrested and will not face any charges.

Savvas Vergas, the mayor of Paphos, who was in the area at the time, inspected the scene and spoke to emergency services.

The family, which has a baby, were in shock but unharmed.

Thu, March 11th 2010 at 12:08

Ian Topwood from W. Cyprus comments:

This idiotic driver should have been arrested and charged with reckless driving and made to endure a driving ban as a warning to all the other mindless morons who insist on driving in this macho manner in overloaded vehicles, a common sight around Pafos.
It is only incredibly good fortune that no pedestrians were killed or injured by this dangerous action.
When will the Police take some action with these people and do their job for a change.

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Wed, March 10th 2010 at 19:05

ad from paphos comments:

There also needs to be something done about the age of the commercial vehicles in use around the island. There seem to be so many old Bedfords etc that would have been retired from mainland European service 20 years ago...

In my opinion, the traffic police would be making the roads safer by not chastising drivers of brand new cars (with good brakes etc) for speeding 5 kmh over the highway limit, but by stopping older vehicles and checking light bulbs, wiper blades, brake pad wear and tyres etc. But then again, that would involve people actually working and not hiding under flyovers...

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Wed, March 10th 2010 at 17:37

Mike from Limassol & UK comments:

If the driver was speeding and if the lorry exceeded its safe load weight then pray tell me under what rules would the driver (whose responsibility it is) and the company (whose duty of care it is)are not prosecuted with the full weight of the law.

If the driver was not exceeding a safe speed and the lorry was not overloaded then it would just be an accident given of course that the vehicle was roadworthy & fit for purpose.

Knowing Cyprus road users in the main and the terrible state of many vehicles one sees on the roads one could claw back all of Cyprus' deficits from road users alone in a very short space of time and simultaneously make our roads a safe place to drive on.

I must assume the Chief of Paphos Police is knowledgeable & clever enough to have all reports to certify that he was justified in not charging the driver. I for one have faith in his judgement I just hope his subordinates have undertaken their duties with due diligence.