One person died on the spot and two were injured in another serious accident with a heavy truck on the "Trakia" motorway. The incident occurred today at around 14:06 in the area of the 311-312th kilometer (near the village of Zheleznik, between Yambol and Karnobat). A truck with a Burgas registration, moving in the direction of Sofia, tore through the median barrier and swept two oncoming vehicles head-on into the lane towards Burgas.
Chronology and details of the incident
- Time of the collision: The emergency call 112 was made at exactly 2:20 p.m., and the collision itself occurred minutes before.
- Direction of the truck: The heavy-duty truck was traveling towards the capital Sofia when it suddenly lost control.
- Struck vehicles: Running over the dividing fence, the TIR hits two cars with Sofia registration. One of them is a light truck type "banicharka", which is overturned beyond recognition.
- Driver's version: The 56-year-old truck driver claims to be flat tire, which led to the inability to control the vehicle.
Condition of the injured
- Victim: The driver of one of the hit cars died on the spot. His body remained trapped for hours in the crushed metal panels of the body while firefighters and rescuers cut the car apart.
- Injured: Two people were traveling in the other car. They were transported to the hospital. Among them is a 46-year-old man with multiple fractures and a serious liver injury, his condition is stable and doctors are monitoring his vital signs.
- Driver's condition: The driver of the TIR is unharmed and has no visible physical injuries.
Reactions of the departments and responsible persons
The "Emergency Service", the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office reacted immediately, and the incident reopened serious debates about road safety in Bulgaria:
- Air ambulance: First time at an incident in this area a medical helicopter landed directly on the asphalt of the highway to provide rapid emergency assistance to the injured and ensure emergency evacuation.
- Prosecutor's Office and Ministry of Interior: Burgas District Prosecutor Georgi Chinev described the situation as a real "déjà vu" because of the similar serious case two weeks ago near Yambol. The alcohol and drug tests performed on the 56-year-old driver are negative. He has been detained for up to 24 hours. The real cause of the accident will be proven only after an auto-technical examination.
- The Director of the Burgas Regional Directorate of Traffic Safety: Senior Commissioner Nikolay Nenkov expressed strong concern, emphasizing that “elastic protective equipment (bumpers) do not fulfill their functionality“ in a collision with such heavy vehicles.
- Regional Minister: The Minister of Regional Development and Public Works is urgently traveling to the scene of the accident. He commented that according to the new regulation from 2024, the barriers must be replaced within a 10-year period, but added: "With the new barriers, the way the trucks are entering, there is no way to stop them. First we need to stop these drivers who drive in this outrageous way – whether they fall asleep, whether they get distracted".
Traffic and emergency traffic measures
The accident caused a real traffic collapse in the peak for travelers to the Black Sea coast on Friday afternoon:
- Blockade and BG-ALERT: The queue of waiting cars quickly exceeded 8 kilometers. The Yambol regional administration activates the national early warning system BG-ALERT, sending emergency messages to citizens in the region to avoid the area and use detour routes.
- Bypass routes: Traffic in the direction of Burgas was redirected through the "Zimnitsa" road junction – p.v. "Petolachkata" – Karnobat – Aytos – Burgas. Traffic in the direction of Sofia was partially restored on the active and emergency lanes after 19:00.
- Ban on trucks: Provoked by the serious incident, the Road Infrastructure Agency (API) urgently announced a restriction on the movement of trucks over 12 tons on the Trakia Motorway for Friday (July 10) between 5:00 PM and 11:00 PM and for Sunday (July 12) from 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM, in order to ease the traffic of cars towards the sea.
Anger on the Internet: “Russian Roulette on Bulgarian Roads“
Social networks literally exploded with angry comments from travelers who were stuck in huge traffic jams in the heat. Users massively blame the lack of control over carriers and the poor state of the infrastructure:
- „Every day we set out on this highway and we don't know if we will get there. The barriers are like cheesecake – the trucks drive through them as if they were not there. How many more people have to die to put up concrete barriers like “New Jersey“?“ – writes an outraged driver in the Facebook group “Road Conditions“.
- Other eyewitnesses share footage of the medical helicopter flying over: „At least for the first time we see real air support on the ground. But it is tragic that it takes corpses to make the system work.“
A dark chronicle and a systemic problem: How long do the guardrails last?
Today's incident occurs just 16 days after another bloody drama on the "Trakia" near the village of Zimnitsa (June 24), where a TIR truck in exactly the same way went through the guardrail and killed a father and two 9-year-old children from the "Slavia" children's football school.
Road safety experts have been warning for years about the following problems on this route:
- Outdated standards: The majority of the restraint systems (railings) on the "Trakia" motorway are designed according to old standards, which do not have the necessary degree of restraint (N2 or H1) for modern 40-ton trucks.
- Lack of concrete barriers: Unlike Western Europe, where heavy reinforced concrete walls are installed in critical and loaded areas, in our country we still rely on thin metal profiles that easily bend and tear in a frontal impact from a heavy machine.
- Driver Fatigue: Summer traffic puts a strain on transit truck drivers, who often neglect breaks to meet trucking company schedules, leading to falling asleep or sudden loss of control in the event of a technical malfunction (such as a flat tire).