Two adult relatives have been taken into police custody following separate, serious traffic collisions in the Larnaca province this past weekend, both involving critically injured underage drivers. The incidents, which occurred within a strikingly similar timeframe on Sunday morning, have ignited a fierce debate regarding parental supervision and the accessibility of vehicles to minors. A fourteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old boy are currently receiving treatment for severe injuries in Nicosia hospitals after each lost control of the car they were driving on rural dirt tracks.
The first accident was reported shortly after 10:30 a.m. in the Athienou area. According to preliminary information from investigators, a vehicle driven by a fourteen-year-old male was traveling at high speed along an unpaved road when the driver failed to maintain control. The car subsequently overturned. Despite being restrained by a seatbelt, the adolescent sustained a significant cranial-cerebral injury. Emergency services transported him first to Larnaca General Hospital before he was transferred to a specialist neurosurgical unit in the capital for further care.
In a disturbingly parallel event, a second collision was reported simultaneously in another rural sector of the Larnaca district. There, a thirteen-year-old boy was behind the wheel of a car that veered off its trajectory, collided with several trees, and rolled over. He was also rushed to Larnaca General Hospital with serious injuries before being moved to a major Nicosia hospital. Medical authorities have confirmed his condition, while grave, is now stable and he is out of immediate danger.
The aftermath of both crashes swiftly shifted focus from the young drivers to the adults deemed responsible for the vehicles. Police arrested a relative of the fourteen-year-old, who is the registered owner of the car involved in the Athienou incident. In the second case, officers executed a court warrant to detain the forty-year-old father of the thirteen-year-old, who is listed as both the owner and legal custodian of the automobile. They now face intensive questioning concerning the circumstances that enabled the minors to operate the vehicles. The legal ramifications for providing a vehicle to an unlicensed child are severe, potentially encompassing charges of criminal negligence.
These concurrent tragedies have cast a harsh spotlight on a perennial issue in rural communities: the casual allowance of underage driving on isolated roads. Traffic safety advocates condemn the practice as a catastrophic gamble, emphasizing that a lack of formal training and immature judgment create a lethal combination. The police investigations, led by the Athienou station and the Larnaca Traffic Department, are ongoing. Authorities are meticulously reconstructing the events to establish definitive causes and to ascertain the full extent of culpability. The incidents serve as a grim reminder that the ultimate responsibility for preventing such foreseeable disasters rests unequivocally with adults.