The Bicycle Advocacy Group reported yet another accident, this time involving an elderly pedestrian and a motorcycle on Tower road, hot on the heels of numerous accidents involving cars and in one case a powered bicycle, saying that now “it is clearly time for change. Change in how we drive and look at our own responsibility for accidents.”

The Bicycling Advocacy Group (Malta), the local pressure group dedicated to bicycle commuting are deeply concerned with the safety of all vulnerable road users, not just cyclists and particularly how the justice system treats accident victims. The group believes that the time for Malta to adopt presumed liability in civil cases to speed up the judicial and compensatory process, is long overdue. It is not just a case of protecting cyclists from car drivers, the group stressed. In the case of the powered bicycle recently knocking down a pedestrian, presumed liability would automatically protect the pedestrian. In this way presumed liability forces people to take responsibility for their actions on the road, across the board, and this has been shown to reduce road accidents.  

Therefore BAG (Malta) are asking for Malta, like 22 other EU states, to adopt a presumed liability process, similar to the Cycle Law Scotland’s ‘RoadShare’ proposal, that would also include the provision of realistic moral damages in traffic accident cases.