ONE of the cyclists injured yesterday (Thursday) morning after a car ploughed into them on a Mallorca highway has died in hospital, reports the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT).
Its leader, Gregorio Serrano, tweeted the DGT logo with a black ribbon captioned by the announcement of the German rider's death.
After the crash at 09.30, when a Spanish woman in a Porsche Cayenne mowed down the group of 12 German nationals on an organised cycling trip, it was reported that two of the victims were seriously injured – one critical – and another seven had sustained minor wounds.
But one of the seven is now said to be in a serious condition, and the cyclist who was critical has now passed away.
The group was on an excursion organised by a German company based on the island whose guides are very experienced and familiar with the routes normally taken.
All of the cyclists were holidaymakers staying in Sa Font de Sa Cala in Capdepera, where the crash occurred.
They were on the MA-15 provincial highway in the Artà direction heading for Puig Major.
Full details of how the crash happened are not yet known, although the driver has been arrested on the grounds of negligent homicide.
Investigations are under way to ascertain whether she had left the requisite 1.5-metre (4'11”) gap between her car and the cyclists when passing them.
The Mallorca crash is the latest in a string of cycling fatalities in Mediterranean Spain in the last year – in May 2017, three bikers were killed and two others so badly injured they are still learning to walk again after a 28-year-old woman who had been drinking and taking cocaine ploughed into them on the N-332 in Oliva (Valencia province).
A week later, another rider was killed in the same spot when a man in his 20s from nearby Ondara (Alicante province), who had also taken drugs and been drinking, veered into the cycling group before fleeing the scene.
He was caught a few kilometres down the N-332 and arrested.
