‘Three killed in accident on Dead Sea highway’

AMMAN — Three people were killed and one was critically injured over the weekend in a road accident on the Dead Sea highway, official sources said on Saturday.

The accident occurred at dawn on Friday and involved a car that was heading towards the Dead Sea hotel area and a pickup truck driving back to Amman on the Sweimeh road at around 2am, a senior traffic official said.

An initial investigation revealed that the driver of the car “lost control of his vehicle on the three-lane road in each direction, entered the other side of the road through a u-turn, and slammed head on with the pickup truck,” according to the traffic official.

“The cause of the accident was a sudden change in lane,” the official told The Jordan Times.

Two of the four passengers, aged 19 and 25, in the car died instantly as a result of the strong impact, and two, including the 22-year-old driver were rushed to a nearby hospital, the source added.

A third passenger died on Friday morning, while the driver of the car remains hospitalised in critical condition, the source added.

The driver of the pickup truck and a passenger with him escaped the accident unharmed, the source added.

A total of 542 people died in around 8,000 accidents during the first nine months of 2016, according to official statistics.

There were also 1,270 critical injuries and 12,000 minor injuries in the same period.

During 2015, there were 608 deaths in 9,712 accidents, as well as 2,021 critical injuries and 12,000 minor injuries.