While carelessly trying to overtake vehicles ahead of him, the driver of the rented vehicle, 23-year-old Bekzhan Smailov struck the right side of a saloon car driven by 56-year-old Günay Öztavşanlılar.
As a result of the accident, Günay Öztavşanlılar was diagnosed with fractures in her neck, back, and vertebrae after being examined at Dr. Burhan Nalbantoğlu State Hospital in Nicosia, she was discharged later on.
Bekzhan Smailov was arrested and a police investigation is ongoing.
There have been a number of accidents on the mountain road caused by careless driving and the fact the the road is too narrow for the volume of traffic which includes heavy trucks.
Last August a woman was seriously injured by an oncoming TR truck which veered across the line, driven by an HGV driver from abroad. In July 2023, four people were killed in a head-on collision.
Transport Minister Erhan Arıklı, at that time, said that the road did need widening but that there were a number of obstacles to this.
He said that “The pipes from the water reservoir supplying Değirmenlik-Minareliköy should be moved to a different location. The military there needs to give up some land; this is easy. The last problem is the expropriation of private property“.
Arıklı noted that a tender had been held in Turkey for work on the Kyrenia-Değirmenlik mountain road and that the company that won the tender was named ASELSAN.
The transport minister also stated that there is a demand from companies to open the Nicosia-Kyrenia main road to trucks.
“That road can carry 20-25 tonnes of weight, but we have determined that many heavy vehicles carry 30-35 tonnes of weight. We will make an agreement with ASELSAN, and with cameras and a weighbridge system to be installed, it will be determined which truck carries how much weight“.