On Tuesday, a horrendous accident was averted in the nick of time.

It was around 5pm, and passengers on the Msida bus stop were waiting to catch a bus coming from Valletta and heading in the direction of Birkirkara.

As Route Bus 22 pulled in to take on passengers, a sizable throng of some two dozen surged forward and jostled its way to get on.

A handful got on, for it was already crowded to the point that passengers obstructed the driver’s vision, sandwiched in as they were between the driver’s seat and the electrically-operated doors.

Without any warning that he wasn’t taking on any more passengers, the driver activated the closing mechanism, with the doors swinging shut and, in the process, trapping a foot of one of those attempting to board the bus as no signal had been given as to what the driver intended to do.

With the man’s foot firmly wedged in between the door and the upright post, unseen by the driver as a dozen or so passengers were obstructing his view, the stranded passenger with one foot on the bus stop and the other caught in the doors, began banging frantically on the doors and screaming to attract the driver’s attention just as the bus was about to pull out.

What saved the man wasn’t his banging or his screaming, but the remaining stranded passengers who happened to be in the driver’s line of vision.

Hadn’t it been for them, Malta Public Transport, hard on the heels of the Porte des Bombes tragedy a few days earlier, would have been in the news again.

What is unnerving about this incident is that the driver, without (what one would have assumed was) the customary “Full Up”  signal, swung the doors shut despite having a severely degraded field of vision of those he was shutting out.

One would have thought the basic training a driver received was to give the “Full Up” signal before pulling out especially when mobbed by those trying to board his bus.

Yes, so one would have thought.

Joseph Genovese