Shocked by the traffic accident in Romania that claimed the lives of seven PAOK fans, professional driver Anastasios Alchazidis tells parapolitika.gr how he found himself just a few kilometers behind the tragedy site and could have been involved in the fatal incident himself. “I was traveling to Greece, in the same traffic flow as the truck that collided with the van. I could have been in that colleague’s position if I hadn’t stopped at a rest area half an hour earlier,” he describes.
PAOK fans accident in Romania: “What I witnessed was shocking”
As he explains, he had to wait four and a half hours until the road opened with alternating traffic. “I happened to stop just 10 meters from the wreckage. What I witnessed was shocking,” he says. “I have children that age. The emotional impact is enormous. You think that maybe you could have been there. God protected me,” he emphasizes.
Mr. Achlazidis describes a road axis that serves all the western Balkans, with enormous traffic load and one lane per direction. “We’re talking about a road like the old national highway. When I was leaving, there was a 30-kilometer traffic jam toward Hungary due to the accident,” he notes.
“Poor road surface conditions”
He makes particular reference to the poor condition of the road surface, which – as he says – has worsened due to recent bad weather. “On a route that normally takes 3 hours and 15 minutes, I took 5 hours. I couldn’t go faster than 50 kilometers per hour, I was literally slaloming between the potholes,” he reports. As he explains, these conditions are extremely dangerous, especially for heavy vehicles. In closing, he emphasizes that a professional driver always adapts their behavior to conditions, however when the road is so compromised, “one mistake can prove fatal.”
