Athens police stages road safety test

Greek traffic police and public transport authorities today staged a three-hour road safety test here to check their state of preparedness t...

Greek traffic police and public transport authorities today staged a three-hour road safety test here to check their state of preparedness to deal with accidents ahead of the August 13-29 Olympics.

The drill, code named “Olympic Hermes II,” involved various mock accidents along stretches of two key avenues in central and southern athens.

Cranes were called in to remove stranded cars and public buses as traffic police crews sealed adjacent parts of the road. One police helicopter was seen participating in the exercise that lasted for three hours.

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Streets were not blocked for the exercise and police did not indicate how many officers were involved in it, nor how well it had gone.

Measures to ease the flow of traffic for Olympic athletes and officials during the Games are scheduled to take effect on August 1. The left lane of Athens’ key arteries is to be exclusively reserved for vehicles bearing Olympic accreditations.

Greek police has installed hundreds of traffic control cameras throughout the city to ease the flow of traffic during the games. The cameras provide live feed to a newly established traffic control centre in Athens police headquarters, which is also designed to function as an accident management centre.

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