Where Malta always tops the league!

While making front page news, the death of yet another young man on the roads is hardly likely to move us. Deaths and serious injury on our roads have become so frequent that only those nearest and dearest to those killed or injured ever talk about them.

Yet, most of us know of someone who has been unecessarily killed on our roads, and young people - especially young men - seem to hit the headlines more often.

Is this another area of life where we have all but given up?

There have been many campaigns over the years but these are generally half-hearted and, as is usual with many of our advertising campaigns, they do not target the worst offenders, particularly insofar as speed is concerned.

Rather than campaigns, we need a long-term plan and a strong determination to reduce the incidence of death. We give up too quickly and usually put all problems down to culture.

We have the same situation as regards smoking. We organise half-hearted, short-term campaigns and then after some time we sigh and give up.

Are you not fed up of hearing how we are always top of the European league tables in fatness, adolescent drinking and smoking and in the number of deaths we have on the roads?

If trends have been reversed elsewhere, they can be reversed here too but the campaigns have to be of a long-term nature and sustained and we must believe we can win, instead of giving up too fast as we always do.

The reason we do not reach our aims in preventative public health is that we do not believe we can win. Of course, we cannot win overnight but negative trends can be reversed.

I would very much like to see the two parties in parliament show greater interest in efforts to improve the situation.

The minister for youths and his brand new shadow minister from Gozo (is it not amazing how the supposedly conservative Gozitans choose up to 40 per cent of their representatives as women!) need to lead by example and talk about these issues.

Funding for health campaigns is money well spent when you weigh this up with what our health bill is going to be like in the future with the explosion in the number of smokers and those who are obese and with the impact of dangerous driving on life and limb.

Very popular television programmes like Xarabank and Tistá Tkun Int can do a world of good if they tackle these subjects from time to time. Teleserials too can be roped in, as it were, in the exercise by making sure they somehow touch on the subject. A subtle message in the right direction and at the right time can be a strong influencing factor.

Cannot we rally round and make change happen?

I believe we can, but do you?

Let us, and the political classes that lead us, discuss real issues and let us do all we can to bring about the change. We can do it if we commit ourselves to the cause.