Traffic problems are mainly two-fold – congestion (including pollution) and more serious, disabling injuries or even death.  Recent road improvements to the previous largely 19th century quality standard infrastructure are now being blamed for an increase in fatalities. 

The recent tragedy on the Attard bypass took place at night in a one-way, three-lane wide section of the road, in the probable absence of other vehicles, with the wrecked state of the vehicle suggesting a high speed impact against the inner lane wall. 

Perhaps our faster dual carriage ways need reflective black and white arrows providing early warning of a bend, but otherwise, blaming road improvements, rather than dangerous driving, for cars and motorcycles hitting walls and barriers at high speed, hints at another partisan argument of little merit.  Perhaps we also need to broadcast more loudly that killing others as a result of proven reckless driving carries a prison sentence in most disciplined countries.

Another political football is traffic congestion.  Some Italian towns have recently constructed metro systems which have cut down on traffic congestion.  Catania has a similar population to ours and Perugia has less than half our population – they both have a metro. 

In Malta, some have claimed that a metro “doesn’t work” with a population of less than a million.  We should have applied for EU financial and technical help for a metro at least 15 years ago – instead we later got proposals for a tunnel to take more road traffic to Gozo and northern Malta, or restricting even further our road system with trams. 

Planning of various sectors has not exactly been such a national success story since independence.  When choosing a new power station we went for more expensive oil rather than a gas-fired one, then decided we needed others to run not only our power station but also our health service.  The mind boggles and wonders what’s “round the corner”?

 

Albert Cilia-Vincenti

Attard