The young driver who died along with two teenagers in the Ronda accident did not have a licence

The tragic incident unfolded when a National Police patrol car spotted a vehicle driving around the town’s industrial estate without lights at around two in the morning on Wednesday. The officers turned around to try to intercept it and signalled for the driver to stop, but the car allegedly accelerated away.

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The National Police officers sought the help of Ronda’s Local Police force who had just dismantled a vehicle checkpoint on Calle Sevilla who told them that they had just seen a light-coloured Mercedes that was going fast, although not at an excessively high speed. They did not stop the car but they did notice that it took the Avenida de La Legión.

The National Police team headed in that direction to try to intercept the car and they found it again in the La Dehesa area, but upon noticing the police, the driver fled again. According to sources, the driver gave the officers the slip, but people in the area said the car may had taken a dirt track that runs parallel to the Tajo de Ronda.

Officers contacted the 091 control room to report the situation and from there the Local Police were notified, whose patrols were preparing to carry out a new road check at another point in the town. However, at the request of their colleagues at the police station, they joined the search.

When they reached the La Dehesa area, the officers noticed the presence of a dust cloud at the start of the track. One of the Local Police patrol cars entered the dirt road, while the other circulated in parallel on the A-374 road, which runs from Ronda to Cádiz province.

This second patrol car was the one that found the crashed Mercedes lying upside down in the ditch on the A-374. Inside were the three young men but they could do nothing to save their lives. Firefighters took almost four hours to recover their bodies after the car had plunged from the dirt track, some 10 or 12 metres above, onto the main road.

Experts from the Guardia Civil's traffic unit continue to investigate the incident with the assistance of the Ronda Local Police and the National Police forces,