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Cologne city center
A cyclist died in an accident at Friesenplatz on Thursday morning. In the eyes of several passers-by, the woman was hit by a truck turning right and immediately died. The rescuers looked after the driver and the 44-year-old witness.
Within minutes of the accident, police cordoned off the intersection and placed a privacy screen around the truck. Less than two hours later, the body was recovered from under the truck, only then, according to police, was he sure it was a woman. In the late afternoon, the victim was finally identified: she is a 55-year-old woman from Cologne.
Police have protected the scene of the accident.
As a police spokesperson said, she was at Hohenzollernring heading for Rudolfplatz. At 11.10 a.m., he had been waiting with two other cyclists in front of a red light at the intersection with Venloer Straße. The three cyclists had stood next to the truck in a row. When the green turned green, the first two riders got out and crossed the road. Around the same time, the truck driver had started to turn right onto Venloer Strasse. The next moment, he caught the victim with the front axle.
Truckers reportedly yelled at victims
Three witnesses independently reported to the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” that the woman was still screaming to stop. Passers-by would also have yelled “stop” and “stop” at the 44-year-old man. In fact, the truck stopped dead. Pedestrians are said to have tried to pull the woman out from under the tire, but the truck hit the road and ran over her. The driver stopped again, got out, and only then did he realize what had happened. He suffered severe shock and rescuers cared for him.
The intersection at Friesenplatz was closed to cars.
Police have recorded the testimony of all witnesses and are now verifying if the incident actually happened. At the time, a spokesperson did not want to confirm or reject the statements of the three witnesses. Experts from the car accident recording team evaluated the tracks on the road. The evidence is good, the accident happened right in front of the police video surveillance cameras at Hohenzollernring. The tapes are now evaluated.
The crash site will apparently be redesigned
As part of the “Ring free” campaign, the crash site will also likely be redesigned next year to make it safer for cyclists. Ring Free spokesman Reinhold Goss hopes the conversion will take place quickly. It is unclear whether the redesign could have prevented the serious accident.
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According to the police, this is the first fatal bicycle accident in Cologne this year, but not the first with a right turn. Most recently, on Holy Thursday, a truck hit a four-year-old boy in Zollstock in front of his father’s eyes while driving to a supermarket. (Read more here.) The boy was resurrected at the site, but later died in hospital. It is still unclear why the collision occurred.
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