Believe it or not, sometimes the authorities’ quick action can be just as stupefying as their inaction. Equally bewildering is when the authorities fail to recognise a clear danger and continue to persist with a practice until the inevitable happens.

One such case in point was the recent reconstruction of a bus shelter after being destroyed, twice over, by car accidents. Thankfully, no one had been waiting for a bus at the time of either accident.

The shelter in question is in Tal-Barrani Road near a dangerous intersection where motorists commonly perform what should be illegal U-turns into busy oncoming traffic.

Motorists coming out of Bulebel, or driving down the main road from the direction of Marsa, are frequently seen using the break in the centre strip to cross the heavily used, high-speed thoroughfare to enter the Valletta-bound lane.

The latest incident, on 13 February, saw the everyday scenario have almost tragic consequences when a motorist travelling in the direction of Birzebbuga performed a U-turn at the spot just as another car was driving in the direction of Valletta. The approaching vehicle struck the car doing the U-turn and crashed into the nearby bus shelter, practically parking itself inside and causing the concrete roof to collapse on top of the car.

Fortunately, no one had been waiting for a bus at the time, and no serious injuries resulted from the crash, although both cars sustained considerable damage and the bus shelter was destroyed.

Within days the bus shelter had already being rebuilt – after having been reconstructed following its destructiion in another accident just a few months before.

The failure of the authorities to notice that the bus shelter lies in a particularly dangerous position after having been destroyed in a traffic accident is short-sighted to say the very least, but to rebuild what is clearly a death trap waiting for its moment in the sun is downright deplorable.

Even a casual observer would conclude that a U-turn at the spot clearly needs to be made illegal and, since such rules are inevitably broken, the bus shelter also needs to be relocated lest a real tragedy occurs.