A driver has been arrested in Spain after a group ride was hit near the popular training destination Calpe, killing one cyclist and leaving the victim’s 14-year-old son in hospital with a broken leg.
The incident happened at around 11.30am on Easter Sunday, near Calpe — the area of south eastern Spain popular with professional teams and amateurs for its winter sun — on the N332 near the Mascarat tunnel.
According to a local report by Todo Alicante the group ride was travelling towards Altea when a driver hit the group, killing a cyclist from the Basque Country who was reportedly thrown into the air by the impact and landed on a roadside embankment.
The rider’s 14-year-old son was also injured in the collision and was taken to hospital in Denia with a broken femur. An air ambulance was deployed to the scene along with paramedics, but medical services confirmed the death of the rider at the scene. A 20-year-old man was also treated for anxiety attacks but able to leave the scene.
The investigation is being led by Benidorm Armed Forces’ Road Safety Investigation Unit, the driver arrested and charged in relation to alleged offences of homicide, injury and violation of road safety. Spanish-based English-language news outlet the Olive Press has reported the driver failed a drug test at the scene.
Images from the scene, shared by a local fire department who attended the collision, show a white Alfa Romeo with a smashed windscreen and badly damaged front left-hand side.
Firefighters were seen scaling the roadside barriers with a stretcher, the cyclist killed having been hit over by the impact. In one photo, part of a badly damaged bike is visible, the forks snapped and stem, handlebars and front wheel ripped from the rest of the bike.
In January, the German track cycling team was hit by a driver in Mallorca, leaving three riders seriously injured.
Last July, a driver who hit nine cyclists in Mallorca, killing one, was jailed for three years. Anais Marco was sentenced at a court in Palma, the prison sentence accompanied by an order for the driver and her insurance provider to pay €1million to the family of the cyclist killed and €213,000 to those who were injured.
During the sentencing, the judge said she had “disregarded the most basic diligence and all duty of care, which caused the collision with the peloton of cyclists, a fact that constitutes a serious violation of the rules that must be respected by anyone driving a motor vehicle”.
Despite testing positive for marijuana following the fatal collision, Marco was acquitted of a charge of driving under the influence of narcotic substances as “there is not sufficient evidence to understand that the accused was driving under the influence of drugs”.
6 thoughts on “Cyclist killed and 14-year-old son seriously injured after Calpe group ride hit by driver, man arrested”
Awful.
Beyond dreadful. My heart
Beyond dreadful. My heart goes out to the family.
Terrifying. You don’t see
Terrifying. You don’t see damage like that from simply driving into a cyclist, so perhaps the driver mashed them into the barriers.
Quote:
A surprising number of people seem to think that driving under the influence of drugs is acceptable “cos it isn’t drink-driving”…
Christ almighty – I’ve ridden
Christ almighty – I’ve ridden that road hundreds of times. I’m *always* nervous there – it’s a proper wind funnel, and often going in or out of the tunnels I’ve had a crosswind take the front wheel and thought all it would take is a driver not paying attention, being impatient, or just being an arsehole to kill me. There’s a sheer drop either side of the road as well.
RIP 😔
¡D.E.P. hermano!
¡D.E.P. hermano!