The Malta Independent on Sunday
Lack of respect for pedestrian safety by Transport Malta
● A serious accident waiting to happen
It would be interesting to find out whether the Minister for Transport and the chairman and chief executive officer of Transport Malta would be prepared to assume personal responsibility if and when a pedestrian is seriously hurt in a section of Triq il-Linja in Attard.
It appears that the safety of pedestrians ranks at the lowest level in the order of priorities of Transport Malta.
In a narrow section at one part of Triq il-Linja there used to be a short stretch of a very narrow pavement for pedestrians.
In its infinite wisdom, Transport Malta decided that this narrow pavement was creating a bottleneck for vehicles and removed the pavement, painted the road red and installed a warning traffic sign indicating a “live hazard” and in particular the presence of “pedestrians in road ahead” (Highway Code, page 75).
As far as it is known, such an arrangement – the removal of a pavement and its substitution with red paint – is not covered in the Highway Code, and there are no provisions in the Motor Vehicle Regulations, 1994, for such traffic control.
The red paint on the road is hardly visible, and the traffic sign is very often ignored by drivers. This situation means that a serious accident is waiting to happen!
This section of the road used to be one way during the morning rush hour, but Transport Malta decided to remove such a restriction after hundreds, if not thousands, of drivers were ticketed for non-observance of the restriction.
If Transport Malta were serious, it would have introduced a similar restriction in the opposite direction for the afternoon/evening rush hour traffic, and not lift the morning restriction.
The increased traffic flow in this section of Attard very close to the village core is unsustainable. What happened to the projected bypass of Attard? Why cannot Transport Malta or the Ministry for Transport allocate some of the millions of euro collected from vehicle taxation to build the Attard bypass?
It would be interesting to know who is actually taking these decisions at Transport Malta, or whether the person(s) concerned are hiding behind anonymity.
The Malta Automobile Club recommends that Transport Malta and the Attard Local Council introduce the narrow pavement again in the section of Triq il-Linja before it is too late.
In foreign countries, where the road is too narrow for two vehicles to pass at the same time, the authorities found a very easy solution. They introduced traffic lights so that vehicles take it in turn to proceed in opposite directions.
In Malta, cameras may need to be added to such traffic lights to capture those drivers who jump the lights.
The time has come for Transport Malta to stop experimenting with people’s lives and start managing traffic in the proper way. Vehicle taxation in Malta as a percentage of total taxation is the highest in the EU. The least drivers expect from Transport Malta is to do the right thing with their money, and implement safe and efficient traffic measures for all road users.