Late last month a major road accident with fatalities took place at the Galatas interchange of the VOAK just outside Chania, plunging local communities into mourning and once again raising questions about the safety of the island’s northern highway and the scourge of traffic accidents, which are higher in Crete than anywhere else in the country.

The accident took place on the morning of Saturday 17^th August when a small car carrying four young people who had been serving at a wedding reception west of the city apparently strayed into the opposite lane while trying to overtake another car and crashed head-on into a tourist van carrying 19 people. Of the three young men in the car, aged 15, 18 and 20, two were killed instantly while a third succumbed to his injuries in hospital. The fourth passenger, a 22-year-old woman, was taken to Chania General Hospital with severe injuries. She remained for some time in intensive care, then spent 2 weeks in the neurological unit before being released to her family on 12^th September, but has yet to give any public account of how the accident happened. Of the 19 occupants of the van, 5 were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The accident gave rise to many anguished comments about the scourge of road fatalities, which have become an epidemic on the island, and about the inherent dangers of the highway, with calls for the installation of a crash barrier between the two opposing lanes at least at the most critical points. However, from the beginning it raised questions about driver behaviour and about working conditions in the catering industry on the island.

The young people had been returning from work at a reception for the wedding of the mayor of Chania Panagiotis Simandirakis at the Alkyon centre at Maleme, a high-profile event attended by the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Regional Governor of Crete Stavros Arnautakis, Chania MP Dora Bakogianni, PASOK leaker Nikos Androulakis and others. They had reportedly been working some 15 hours without a break, from the previous evening to the early morning. Even disregarding the fact that employment under those conditions was illegal for the 15-year old, it is clear that fatigue must have played a large part in the accident. While not wishing to downplay the obvious anguish of the families of the victims, it would be useful to draw some conclusions about the causes of the accident, which will not be fully elucidated until the surviving passenger in the car has been able to give an account of what happened.

For those involved in issues of labour management, this was clearly a case of a “work-related accident”. The Federation of Associations of Workers in Technical Enterprises in Greece (OSETEE), in a preliminary statement reported by Haniotika Nea on 20th August, described it as “a fatal accent with a doubly pitiable dimension which relates both to the announcements repeated over 35 years about the completion of the VOAK and the disregard for Health and Safety in our country’s working environment.” The Labour Centre of Chania issued a statement in which it said: “For the Labour Centre, for us the workers, it is clearly a case of a work accident… and we have sent a letter inviting all the inspection mechanisms of our Nomos to take the necessary steps so as to throw ample light on the working conditions, the hours of service, etc and especially as regards the under-age person.”

For Giannis Lionakis, president of the Heraklion-based Voluntary Association for the Prevention of Accidents (E.SY.PRO.T.A.), Crete’s dismal record on fatal road accidents is partly due to road conditions on the VOAK, but also to the lack of an adequate culture of road safety being instituted from an early age. In a post quoted in Haniotika Nea, he noted that in the first 8 months of 2024 there were 39 road deaths in Crete, as many as in the whole of 2023. Addressing road accident victims in general he said: “Why didn’t we teach you road safety from the cradle, why didn’t we build driver training centres for you, why have we made empty promises that we would have [road safety] classes in our schools. Why, why, why? But an enormous why is when there will FINALLY be a VOAK with a dividing barrier which won’t kill you by accident? How many more years? When will something finally happen? Let me give you a single example: Corinth-Patras 147 km, 28 dead on average every year until the completion of the Olympian Highway. In the last 7 years since its inauguration, there have been a total of 6 deaths.”

Like so many others, the accident was clearly the result of a combination of factors: driver fatigue in the early hours of the morning (the most common time for accidents according to Mr Lionakis), and poor lane discipline – the point at which the accident happened is at the Galatas interchange where there is a broad central area marked off by hatched lines followed by a continuous double line in the centre of the road. The condition of the vehicle was most probably a contributing factor. From the photos it appears that the car was an old-model Peugeot without airbags. Perhaps the survivor will be able to say whether the passengers were all wearing seatbelts or not, but it is significant that all the deaths were in the small car, while in the tourist van, despite the fact that the front was crushed, there were only minor injuries.

While there has been much focus on the VOAK as a “killer road”, the fact is that it would not be such without driver behaviour. The road surface is poor in places but visibility is usually good and it has a few of the natural hazards found in Northern Europe such as snow, ice, fog, etc. On the other hand, examples of driver indiscipline can be found every day. Seeing a recent model pick-up truck passing a long line of cars at speed on the wrong side of the double white line is an almost daily experience for anyone who drives regularly on the VOAK. Seltbelt wearing is still considered an option by many, especially those of the older generation. A typical comment by an old lady asked to fasten her seat belt is: “I don’t need to wear a belt, there aren’t any police around here”. The summer mix of hesitant tourist drivers and impatient locals is no doubt another contributing factor, as is the lack of a visible police presence especially on the sections of the VOAK west of Chania.

The regular statistics for traffic violations produced by the General Regional Police Directorate for Crete tell their own story of indiscipline and disregard for the law. In the week from 8th to 14th September, a total of 9,189 vehicle checks on the island yielded a total of 3,242 violations, the most significant of which are reproduced in the table. The most common violations were non-use of a crash helmet by motorcyclists, excessive speed, and driving with a suspended licence.