A minibus carrying foreign tourists crashed near the southern Turkish resort of Antalya on Saturday, killing a Swedish national and injuring five others in the vehicle, state broadcaster TRT News reported.
The 71-year-old Swede died at the scene of the crash in Aksu in the early hours of the morning, TRT said. Four Danish nationals and the Turkish driver were hurt when the minibus hit roadside barriers.
The driver was detained by police after being treated at the hospital.
Hurriyet newspaper’s website reported the tourists were being driven to Antalya airport at the time of the crash.
Turkey was once notorious for its high casualties in traffic accidents, something blamed both on reckless drivers and poor road conditions.
Road infrastructure has vastly improved in the last decade with the construction of divided highways with more lanes.
The country also continues to take several steps for traffic safety.
Turkey was also one of the signatories of the United Nations’ global road safety improvement plan in 2010. The next year, it implemented a strategy for road safety. "We prioritized pedestrians in traffic and recruited more than 8,000 traffic safety personnel in the past two years for better enforcement of rules," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a statement recently.
He also credited a 25% drop in accidents last year to new speed limits, which also contributed to a 33% decline in traffic accident fatalities.
"Fatalities per a population of 100,000 people were 13.4 in 2010 and this number has now decreased to 5.9," he noted.
The new action plan and strategy paper focus on dozens of guidelines to minimize casualties and improve safety by "prevention of motorists to err." So-called black or hot spots where the majority of accidents happen will be examined again for further measures to prevent accidents, from improving the road’s condition if needed to the deployment of more traffic inspectors. Pedestrians, cyclists, the disabled and motorcycle drivers will be prioritized in the safety plan.
Traffic casualties in Turkey are still unfortunately common, though lower.
Last year, 4,866 people were killed in more than 983,000 traffic accidents, although the number of traffic accidents dropped more than 15% compared to 2019.