Traffic board uses Fernando Alonso's crash to 'illustrate' cyclist safety guidelines
Tuesday, March 23, 2021 @ 1:50 PM
TRAFFIC authorities in Spain have used Formula 1 legend Fernando Alonso's bike crash in Switzerland to illustrate how to avoid accidents on two wheels, but 'without prejudice' as the actual cause of the racing driver's mishap.
Alonso suffered a dramatic collision involving a car turning into a supermarket near his home in Lugano on February 11, was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery on multiple face fractures, but left just days later in good health.
He has already taken part in pre-season test-drives for his new team, Alpine Rénault, and is expected to hit the F1 circuit again this weekend for the first date of the 2021 season, which will mark his long-awaited comeback after announcing his retirement from the top echelons of motor racing in 2019.
Although he has been pronounced fit to drive, the ace from Asturias will be competing all year with titanium plates in his face.
Now, Spain's General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), part of the highways, transport and infrastructure ministry, has 'borrowed' Alonso's crash to explain in the latest issue of its magazine how to stay safe on a bike and how to ensure cyclists around you do so if you are driving.
A diagram shows a blue car needing to turn left into a side road, and states that it should remain stopped in the central filter lane to wait for oncoming vehicles.
It warns those in the position of the blue car to 'observe vehicles and pedestrians' and 'calculate the distance and speed they are moving at', then to 'start the turn once there is no risk to either'.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com