There were two major traffic accidents on Friday, one where a woman riding a scooter died after crashing with a taxi on Friendship Bridge, and the other in which 10 passengers were injured after two buses collided in the Areia Preta area.
According to a Public Security Police (PSP) statement, the fatal accident took place at about 6 a.m. when a woman, a local resident in her fifties riding her scooter and a taxi crashed on Friendship Bridge heading towards the peninsula.
Firemen at the scene said that the woman was stuck underneath the front of the taxi, suffering multiple fractures. She had already stopped breathing and her heart had stopped beating when she was rescued, and she was pronounced dead at the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre.
The taxi driver was not injured and passed a breathalyser test, according to media reports, which said the cabbie claimed that he did not see any vehicles in front of him until he sensed that he had hit a person.
PSP officers later said that the taxi driver did change lanes before the crash, but the exact cause of the crash was still under investigation, urging witnesses to provide information about the accident by calling PSP’s Traffic Department on 2837 4214.
Then at about 8 a.m., two buses collided at the junction of Avenida Leste do Hipódromo and Rua Graciosa, causing 10 passengers, all of them local female residents, aged from 5 to 79 minor injuries. They were all taken to the private Kiang Wu Hospital for treatment, according to the firemen at the scene.
According to media reports, a TCM bus was turning in to Rua Graciosa when the driver saw pedestrians on the zebra crossing so he stopped the bus, and a Transmac bus then rear-ended the TCM bus.
The collision between the Transmac route No. 51A bus and the TCM route No. 7 bus saw the TCM bus going up onto the pavement and coming to a halt after hitting the metal railings, road signs and rubbish bins there.
