The justice minister, standing in for the travelling transport minister during Tuesday’s surprise parliamentary debate on the national traffic plague, had the good sense to acknowledge that the traffic congestion blighting the country of late is, in fact, a reality.

That the traffic situation is a perception has been a running national joke ever since a government functionary quipped that the country’s traffic chaos was merely that – a ‘perception’.

That perception hit home hard yesterday morning when, for the umpteenth time of late, morning rush hour traffic ground to a complete halt and what are normally 20 minute trips took in excess of an hour and a half to complete.  Thousands of people were late for work or for whatever other meeting or errand they had planned that morning.  The end result: National productivity and quality of life suffered yet another blow.

This situation is, however, far from a problem of the current government’s making.  The fact of the matter is that successive governments have tried to tackle the problem, with only fleeting success.

That is why the justice minister was absolutely correct when he said that the worst thing to do at the moment would be to politicise the issue: The last government failed to sort out the problems plaguing our roads, and those problems have arguably been exacerbated under the current administration.

It is appreciated that there are some very big projects in the pipeline such as the Kappara roundabout and the Addolorata flyovers, but other measures certainly need to be put in place in the meantime.  If matters persist in this way until those two projects are completed, the country’s competitiveness – along with much of commuters’ will to live - will have been all but wiped off the board by then.

That is because apart from commuters’ very obvious frustrations, there is the very serious risk that businesses will begin to feel the pinch in the not too distant future should the situation persist, which it threatens to do with the advent of  the rainy season now well and truly upon us.

As such, immediate interim measures must be taken, one of which should be an increase in the number of traffic police on the roads, especially in the morning, to ensure better flows of traffic at certain congestion hotspots.

Another, referred to by the Prime Minister during the traffic debate, is the test introduction of a so-called ‘tidal system’, which allows for the lanes on a road to be reallocated from one side to another to cater for traffic flows.

These are both positive stopgap measures, but what is really needed is a holistic traffic management plan, a plan that actually works.  It is incredible that the EU’s most densely populated country – in terms of both people and cars – does not have one.  But then again perhaps we were caught with our pants down after the number of cars on the country’s roads doubled in the 15 years since 2000.

But at the end of the day sorting out the country’s traffic woes was one of the government’s leading electoral pledges, and it is high time that the people start getting what they voted for in this respect.

Apart from the partisan finger-pointing and the perpetual political blame game lies an issue that crosses all political divides: Traffic jams are ultimately democratic in the trials and tribulations they cause. They affect everyone irrespective of their political stripe – from school kids to workers, from private vehicles users to public transport users, and from businesses to the government itself.

A problem of such national proportions requires a truly national solution, and it requires solutions that go beyond petty politics and blame games.