Inca worried about traffic accidents

The campaign by councils between Inca and Alcudia, for action to be taken to increase road safety and reduce the number of accidents, is to be stepped up a gear this week. The councils' campaign will focus on the stretch of road which enters Inca as a motorway from Palma, but leaves the town as a single carriage road all the way to Alcudia, after figures released indicated a seven per cent increase in traffic accidents in the Inca area. Local police chief Baltasar Perello has reported that last year 250 serious accidents were recorded in Inca, showing an increase in comparison to the 232 which occurred in 1998. There were also a further 90 minor traffic collisions. According to the police chief, the principal black spots are the main access roads into the town - one being the motorway. While Perello hopes that the recent installation of more traffic lights and roundabouts will serve to ease the situation, the access roads are not the only black spots. The main reason is that Inca has become a hub for traffic heading from Palma and the airport to the north east, as well as people travelling from the capital to Manacor, Sa Pobla, Lluc and Inca. The chief of police has recommended that a ring-road be built, thus diverting all the busy tourist traffic away from the centre along a controlled route, but the problem that remains is that, once past Inca ,the dense traffic flow gets bottle-necked in single lane traffic.