Eight killed as drug-driver ploughs head-on into pack of cyclists

A SPEEDING Mercedes plowed head-on into a group of cyclists in southern Italy yesterday morning, killing eight of them.

The driver had been smoking marijuana, police said.

The sheet-draped corpses dotted the two-lane road near Lamezia Terme, in the Calabrian region. In addition to the eight cyclists killed, four people were injured: two cyclists and the driver and a young boy in the car with him, a police official said.

It was reported that the driver was placed under arrest on charges of multiple homicide. A police spokesman said the man, a Moroccan national, tested positive for marijuana.