"Every time I think about it, I'm afraid to go out on the road. In fact, I've arranged to meet several friends tomorrow to accompany me, because right now I don't see myself able to go out alone." These are the words of a woman who has thousands of kilometers on her bike, who in 2013 was the champion of the Canary Islands Long Distance Triathlon, who is the current champion of the Fecantri Cup and who this Monday, experienced the worst test of her life, witnessing the fatal accident on the road from Tinajo to La Santa, which ended with a cyclist dead and another injured.
Out of respect for the victim's family, Tamar González was reluctant to recount the unfortunate event that she had to experience. However, she also believes that it is necessary to talk about what happened so that people become "aware" of the times that cyclists are put in danger on the road. "It is very hard to see how a husband loses his wife when they are on vacation practicing a sport. You have to think that it is a human life, that we all have parents, children, husband... and we lose nothing by separating ourselves 10 centimeters more from a cyclist or by losing 10 seconds in the car", reflects the young triathlete.
Personally, she has experienced several scares on the road. "I have been practicing this sport for years and I have also been in the position of risking my life many times. It is clear that what is missing is a lot of awareness. It is also not a question of accusing the great majority, because I must recognize that if 500 cars pass me in two hours of cycling, 480 or 490 pass me well. But it is that those other 10 are the ones that can kill me."
Tamar says that she has suffered several falls for this reason; that the rearview mirror of a car has touched her; and that many times they have passed her at full speed or even braked in front of her. However, this Monday she came face to face with tragedy, having to witness a fatal accident, caused by a car that had just passed her.
"The car passed me in a bad way, nervous"
"I passed this couple in Tinguatón", recalls Tamar, reliving what happened on Monday morning. "I greeted them, as we always do when we meet any fellow cyclist. She specifically looked at me and smiled."
However, Tamar made a stop and the couple moved ahead again. "When I arrived in Tinajo, I decided to stop at a cafeteria to greet some friends. And when I went to join them, the couple passed me," she says. The next time she saw them, they were lying on the ground on the road.
"When I passed the roundabout in Tinajo, in the direction of La Santa, when I was arriving at a restaurant that is on the corner, a car passed me in a bad way, nervously behind me, super fast. But as it is unfortunately usual for us, I didn't give it importance."
However, moments later, when Tamar took the curve and began the descent that is in that section, she heard "the braking, the explosion." "For a moment I lowered my head and became rigid, because I didn't really know if it was going to hit me, where it was coming from. You get a little scared." Then, when she raised her head, she saw "the smoke from the car, which had left the lane, and the two bodies lying on the road."
Both Tamar and several drivers who were passing through the area at that time stopped to try to help the cyclists. "I approached the husband, who was the first one I found. But a guy told me: he has a pulse, go see the woman. I approached the woman ten meters and another driver also approached. We looked at each other and we said it all with a look."
The cyclist, a Danish woman in her 40s, a regular tourist to Lanzarote, had died from the serious injuries caused by the accident, after being run over.
"I don't understand what could have happened, there was a lot of visibility. There is nothing there! It is where the last restaurant is at the exit of Tinajo. It is a slope, the visibility is good", Tamar repeats again and again.
"We were trying to keep the husband from seeing his dead wife"
Afterwards, efforts were focused on the victim's husband, until the ambulance arrived. "The situation was complicated because when he regained consciousness, those of us who were there were trying to keep him from turning around, because he was asking about his wife. I was telling him: Don't turn around, look at me, look at me! Because his wife was behind him, a few meters further back, dead", Tamar recalls, while her voice breaks.
Tamar spent about two hours at the scene with other witnesses, until the ambulances, the Local Police, the Civil Guard arrived... "When everything was over, I had to do the 5 kilometers that were left to my house and I went all the way crying and biting my lip."
Although the car ended up overturned and off the road, the driver was unharmed and did not need medical assistance. Now, the Civil Guard is investigating the causes of the accident, to report to the Court.
The danger of the shoulder
Although Tamar had to experience this tragedy firsthand, she is not the only cyclist who now feels afraid to go out on the road. Two accidents in less than a week on the island, and one of them with this tragic ending, have generated concern in many athletes, who complain about the attitude of certain drivers and, also, about the state of the roads.
"There is no space, there is no shoulder, and the few that we have are often poorly conditioned, they are dirty, the plants, the gorse, invade part of the shoulder," Tamar laments. In addition, she emphasizes "another thing to take into account": as a cyclist, she has verified that when she goes inside the shoulder is when she has more problems. "The car does not see me as an obstacle, so it passes me close. However, when I am invading, it sees me as an obstacle, and then I notice that it separates the meter and a half or two meters, or invades the opposite lane to overtake."
Therefore, she advises "all colleagues and all cyclists to invade the lane in which they are circulating", to avoid that danger. "The two times I have fallen in my life has been when I was on the shoulder, because that is when they have passed me grazing", she recalls, asking once again drivers to be aware and exercise extreme caution when there are cyclists on the road.
The bike lane, "totally incoherent"
Regarding the promised bike lane, which has been talked about a lot again after the latest accidents recorded on the island, Tamar considers that it is not the solution. "I think it is totally incoherent. A bike lane is a promenade lane, so that the person who does not usually do sports can go from Playa Honda to Puerto del Carmen or Arrieta by their bike lane, in the style of Verano Azul", she says.
However, she considers that it is not useful for athletes. "A person like me, who trains when preparing for an Ironman 30 hours a week, and does 500 kilometers on a bike, has to circulate on the road on which they are going to compete. I have to have the same conditions and the hardness that I am going to find in any test, whether it is in Lanzarote or outside", she explains.
Now, little by little, Tamar must gradually return to normal in training, to continue in the elite of triathlon. "Thank God, I'm alive," she says. And like many cyclists on the island, she hopes that this new tragedy will at least serve to raise awareness among drivers and prevent new deaths.
