General Cañas Claims More Victims
In less than a week, the Autopista General Cañas - the highway between Alajuela and San José - again becomes the scene of a fatal accident, this time claiming the lives of two people.

The accident occurred at 3:30am Monday when a taxi in front of the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA), when a taxi coming from Jacó lost control and claimed the lives of the driver and one of the passengers. The second passenger is in hospital recovering.

Police closed off the highway between Cariari and La Uruca well into the morning rush hour, creating a massive traffic chaos on the highway as drivers were diverted through Heredia. Those who caught the mornig news of the accident and highway closure where able to avoid the chaos.

Authoritis say that the taxi driver fell asleep at the wheel and flipped on the highway. The taxi with plate number TSJ 1419 was driven by 24 year old Deivyt Gerardo Paniagua Delgado, a father of four year old child. Passenger Vernor Alberto Hernández Badilla, 23 years of age, was also killed, while Paniagua' sister, Pamela Aguilar Vargas, was taken to Hospital México, a short distance from the scene of the accident, with cuts and bruises.

The victims were trapped in the vehicle for some time and it was hours later that the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) were on the scene to order the removal of the bodies. Graphic images of the accident and the dead lying on the pavement were on local television channels with the news of the accident on the early morning news editions.

According to Pamela, the sister of the taxi driver, her brother had been driving taxi for five years and was accustomed to doing the Jacó - San José trip three times a week to pick her up. Hernández, who is identified as a transvestite, worked the Jacó area and was a regular client of of Paniagua.

Pamela told authorities that they had left Jacó about 1:30am. She added that her brother didn't want to make the trip that turned fatal but Hernández was a good client and could not refuse him. "He was a calm person and a careful driver. I don't know what happened", said Pamela.

Last Friday, the local television channel 7 traffic cameras caught live the accident between a tractor trailer and a passenger vehicle that claimed the life of one man. The accident occurred at the intersection west of the Juan Santamaría International airport, also on the General Cañas highway and one of the most hair raising and dangerous intersection in the country that is scene to 3 to 4 accidents a week.

In that accident, the driver of the tractor trailer told authorities that the vehicle crossed his path and could not avoid getting it caught under the front of the truck and dragged across the incoming lanes, taking down the airport security fence and stopping short of the east end of the airport runway.

At first questions were being raised that there might have been a traffic light malfunction. However, the director of Tránsito (traffic) said the traffic light is working well.

According to unior Araya, from the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT) engineering department, the intersection has been studied and will part of the contract for changes to the San José - San Ramón section of the highway.

The government has built to pedestrian bridges, one in front of Plaza Cariari is already functional and the other a short distance away in front of the Los Arcos residential community, to eliminate the mad dash across the busy highway that has resulted in a number of deaths.

The highway, used to be four lanes, when the Ministerio de Obras Pública y Transporte (MOPT) decided to make it a six lane highway without widening the road. The bridges along the highway remain four lanes and there is no shoulder.

Basically, the busiest highway in the country has been converted into a death trap as motorists and pedestrians do battle on a daily basis.