A recent study by EKAB, the Cretan Ambulance Union, shows a startling increase in death and injuries as a result of traffic accidents in the period of 1996 through 2005. Dimitris Vourvahakis, director of the union, announced that during that 10-year period there were 1,248 deaths on all of Crete and an unbelievable 18,001 people injured just on the eastern part of the island – which includes, course, our area of Gouves!! Mr. Vourvahakis pointed out that the number of deaths from these accidents surpasses the official death toll of the recent war in Lebanon, and that 41 percent of the injured and 30 percent of the deaths were young people aged 17-30.