Weekend turns deadly for three drivers

Three men are dead following separate road crashes, with two of them dying at the scene this weekend and another succumbing to his injuries in hospital following a collision last month.

According to local media, an unknown male driver in Paphos was driving a rental car Saturday night after midnight when he got involved in an accident. 

The incident took place on the Limassol-Paphos highway on Sunday early morning around 1:50am, with police later saying the man was driving a rental vehicle moving west but in the eastbound lanes. 

Vehicle collides with rental car on highway

Local police officials said the man’s car burst into flames following the collision, with additional reports saying the man died after being engulfed in flames. Police later said the car was not rented out to anyone at the time of the incident while local media speculated that the driver was related to the owners of the rental company.

A married couple in the other vehicle, which was incorrectly described as a rental in initial reports, was rushed to the Emergency Room at Paphos General Hospital, where doctors said the female driver and her passenger husband were out of any immediate danger.

Another fatal accident took place on the weekend in Nicosia district, just south of the capital, when 59-year-old Nicos Valanides from Limassol was driving his vehicle through Latchia on Friday night.

Car goes over median, slams into truck

According to police, Valanides was driving on Yiannis Kranidiotis Avenue just ten minutes after midnight when he got involved in an accident.

Reports said the driver lost control of his vehicle which went over the raised median strip, slamming into a truck that was parked on the roadside of the opposite lane.

Valanides was rushed to the ER at Nicosia General Hospital where doctors on duty pronounced him dead on arrival.

A third road victim was also identified over the weekend following a road crash in Limassol in early October.

Police said 49-year-old Charalambos Terlas from Limassol succumbed to his injuries on Saturday at Nicosia General, where he had been hospitalized with a serious head trauma.

Driver succumbs to brain injury following October crash

Terlas had been driving in Limassol on October 2 early in the morning when his car collided with another vehicle at a traffic light junction.

Following the collision both vehicles ended up slamming into a galvanized steel fence, with the other driver, described as a 19-year-old male, sustaining only a broken nose.

A day later, a woman was killed in a horrific car accident in Larnaca, when the vehicle she was driving around midnight crashed into a tree and went up in flames.

Elena Kyriacou, a 32-year-old mother of one, had missed a stop sign, crashed into a tree, and was unable to exit the vehicle, with her body being burned beyond recognition.