It is dismaying to read your report “Transport Malta reserves 45 zones exclusively for swimmers” about so-called ‘safe swimming zones’ (3 July). The reported comment by Dr Stanley Portelli, CEO of Transport Malta, that these ‘swimming zones’ were in line with (TM’s) objective to “promote a safer culture within all modes of transport” and “stepping up its efforts to educate and increase safety awareness among boat users” is particularly worrying.

A parallel case was the astonishing conclusion of a recent EU report that, because Malta has a cycle-helmet law, young cyclists are safer in Malta than countries like Denmark  and Holland. Of course, this is pure insanity; the absurd conclusion in this EU report ignores the plain fact that wearing a cycle helmet does not make road conditions safer for cyclists.

Based on exactly the same deluded thinking, restricting unfortunate swimmers to small zones will not have the slightest effect on “promoting a safer culture” on (power-boat) safety. If anything, it will add to more reckless speeding near our shores and endanger those healthy swimmers who take more than an old-fashioned “dip” beyond the restricted confines of these buoys. This limitation of swimmers to small areas for their own safety is another example how things are seen from the wrong end. A swimmer is neither fast nor dangerous; therefore there is no reason to restrict swimmers to ‘safe areas’. Boats can be both fast and dangerous to swimmers and, surely, it is their responsibility to proceed carefully when near the shore!

Sadly, the kind of thinking behind these “safety zones” is an extension of our attitude of hyper-segregation in Malta and a consequent “us and them“ mentality. In the same way, our (urban) streets still use the age-old approach of roadway for cars and (usually narrow) pavements for people, while progressive countries have been taming the car and converting urban areas to shared spaces. Antiquated thinking of this kind has resulted in expropriation of the sea from swimmers who are now confined to these absurdly small swimmer zones, while leaving the wide open sea for boat owners. These boat owners are presumably now given license to kill anybody outside the zones. I was once nearly killed by a “throttle happy” speed boat outside a zone, another swimmer was recently killed by a sea scooter and readers will recall the case, some ten years ago, of an Italian tourist who met his end after being gruesomely minced by a boat propeller.

Wherever one looks, more and more concessions are made to motorised options, while squeezing all the rest into an ever smaller space. The end-result of these daft “swimmers’ zones” is that swimmers are being progressively restricted to small areas, outside of which they are susceptible to be hit by a boat. As things now stand, boats have 2.5 million square miles of Mediterranean to roam (and speed) in, whereas four hundred thousand potential swimmers are expected to squeeze themselves into tiny “swimming zones” where they can barely swim beyond the buoys 25 metres from the shore.

This situation is crass and ridiculous beyond words. Swimming is a very healthy form of exercise. Restriction of “safe” swimming to a fuddy-duddy dip in a tiny zone is wrong. What is so terribly wrong in this kind of illogical thinking is that it shifts the responsibility for safety on to the swimmer and not on to powered sea vessels, even when these have the entire Mediterranean in which to speed. To say that keeping swimmers penned in an enclosure “promotes a safer culture within all modes of transport” is as absurd as the delusion in the EU report which concluded that cycle helmets will make our roads safer for children on bicycles.

Unfortunately, this upside-down thinking and pandering to privileged (motor) boat owners is becoming claustrophobic. The rows of buoys which are depriving our swimmers from swimming freely should be removed at once. The right approach is to ensure by strict enforcement that boat owners proceed carefully if near enough to the shore. This is not asking too much of boat owners since they have millions of square kilometers of Mediterranean at their disposal.

■ Dr G G Debono

Sliema