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Almancil bypass crash victims were British

INEM125The two victims of yesterday’s car crash on Almancil’s Troto bypass have been identified as a British couple who had been on holiday in the Algarve.

The head-on crash at dawn on Thursday morning, happened as the Britons were returning to Faro airport to catch their return flight.

Traffic was diverted from the new bypass for three hours as rescue services worked to cut the bodies from the wreckage. The driver was a 68-year-old man and his partner, a 56-year-old woman.

Three Portuguese men were injured in the crash, two seriously, thought now to have occurred as the British driver’s Citroën Elysée was being driven on the wrong side of the road, possibly imagining the road was a one-way dual carriageway or simply used to driving on the left-hand side of the road.

The crash happened on a curve with little visibility and was in a 'single white line' section of the road, denoting no overtaking.*

The accident happened shortly after 06:00 when the Citroën drove straight into an oncoming pick-up truck.

The British couple died immediately in a crash that was so violent that their bodies had to be cut from the wreckage. The three occupants of the other vehicle, aged between 46 and 67, were treated at the scene and later transported to Faro hospital where they remained throughout the day. Two of them were seriously injured.

The emergency operation involved 32 people, including INEM emergency medical staff, Bombeiros, road company workers and the GNR.

 

CrashTroto

 

* see comments section below

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Comments  

+1 #3 Ed 2017-10-23 10:59
Quoting MichaelB:
Car rental companies could do more to educate tourists about single white line. Even this news report is wrong. A single white line does not mean no overtaking, it means do not cross. You do not turn left through a solid white line. You do not change lanes through a solid white line.

Car rental companies should also ensure that customers know basics, like turning the car lights on. On Saturday evening at ~7:15PM my wife met me at the airport and driving away from the airport on the dual carriageway a car was driving, in the dark, without lights. Along the EN125 before the Almancil exit, another 2 cars were driving without lights. All cars were rental cars.

You are quite right, an unbroken white line indeed does mean that you may not cross it. I will annotate the text.
+3 #2 MichaelB 2017-10-23 10:24
Car rental companies could do more to educate tourists about single white line. Even this news report is wrong. A single white line does not mean no overtaking, it means do not cross. You do not turn left through a solid white line. You do not change lanes through a solid white line.

Car rental companies should also ensure that customers know basics, like turning the car lights on. On Saturday evening at ~7:15PM my wife met me at the airport and driving away from the airport on the dual carriageway a car was driving, in the dark, without lights. Along the EN125 before the Almancil exit, another 2 cars were driving without lights. All cars were rental cars.
+6 #1 liveaboard 2017-10-21 09:25
The switch from driving on the left to driving on the right [and vice versa] is tricky and dangerous.
I've made the mistake myself for a few seconds, and it was close; another time I was passenger when a British driver nearly had a full frontal collision as we drove down the wrong side of the road after taking a turn.

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