14/08/2013 00:00
TW
0
STAFF REPORTER

PALMA
AN accident yesterday claimed the life of an 11-year-old girl and left her aunt with severe leg injuries after the motorcycle they were both riding was run over by a lorry at a notorious black spot on Palma's Son Castello industrial estate.

The tragedy occurred where Gremi Sabaters street meets Gremi Fusters, the location where in January this year a local policeman on patrol on his motorbike was crippled following a collision with an oncoming vehicle. In 2007 alone, at the very same point, five accidents occurred resulting in two people being injured; in 2006 there were no less than 10 here leaving four people injured, and in 2005 eight accidents left five people in hospital.

The reason why so many collisions take place at this intersection is because drivers frequently don't respect the give-way signs and they are hit by traffic coming from their right. Both Gremi Sabaters and Gremi Fusters are two-lane roads and with poor visibility the give-way signpost on Fusters is almost right on top of the one in Sabaters.

Yesterday's tragedy happened around 9.45am for the same reason. According to a number of witnesses, the scooter-type motorcycle was driving down Gremi Fusters. On arriving at the junction with Gremi Sabaters, it failed to stop at the give-way sign and was hit by a lorry belonging to an excavation company. The 40-year-old driver could not brake quickly enough to avoid the scooter.

The 22-year-old Ecuadorian woman who had to have part of her right food amputated, had her niece as a pillion passenger but the 11-year-old died instantly.

Local police took on the sad task of identifying the victims, collecting witness statements and controlling the traffic around the incident. The lorry driver was shaken but uninjured and a test showed he had not been drinking. The family of the victims were given psychological counselling. Workers on the industrial estate who went to the site of the accident, complained that nothing has been done to make the junction safer seeing as so many collisions had happened there.