Majorca holiday ends in crash tragedy

Two separate and tragic accidents claimed the lives of a 65-year-old German holidaymaker and a 28-year-old local woman from Cas Concos yesterday. Sixty-five-year-old Manfred Miller, on holiday in the Port of Andratx with his wife, died after his Renault Twingo hire car rolled backward over a ten metre drop, landing on its roof . According to police sources, Miller decided to pop out in the hire car at mid-day yesterday and it appears that as he got into the car, parked below their apartment block in Can Borras, the vehicle started to roll backwards. Police suspect that the hand brake was not on and that the 65-year-old was unable to stop the car. In just a matter of seconds, the hire car crashed through a wall, into a lamp post and then over the edge, plummeting some ten metres to the road below. The driver was trapped inside the mangled wreck of the car and a team of Andratx paramedics battled to try and save his life - but sadly he died at the scene. Much earlier in the day, shortly after midnight, 28-year-old Maria Mas Obrador died after the four-wheel-drive vehicle she was driving came off the road just six kilometres outside Felanitx on the road to Porerras. According to the police, the driver lost control of the vehicle on a bend in the road and she died at the scene. The death toll on Majorca's roads is quickly rising this year and traffic police and the authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about the apparent lack of safety on the roads. A new campaign may be launched before the summer, when traffic on the roads reaches near saturation point.