Sorry is the hardest word...

On February 22, I was driving along Main Street, Mellieha. I had just left Shoppers Supermarket and needed to stop 300 yards down the road at Razzett greengrocers, so I was driving at about 20 mph.

At the bus stop opposite Triq Garzella was a bus off-loading two passengers. As I was half way past it, the bus driver, without looking in his rear view mirror or indicating, decided to swing out into the road from the bus bay, nearly hitting my car and forcing me across the road (thankfully there was no oncoming traffic). I sounded my horn in both disgust and to attract his attention and he slowed down to allow me to pass. But when I parked in the lay-by opposite the greengrocer, the bus driver stopped alongside me and gave me a glaring stare.

I asked him if he had an indicator so he could inform motorists of his intentions, whereupon, instead of apologising, he said: "Shall I alight and sort you out?".

These are the kind of drivers who give Maltese public transport a bad name. Not only do their buses pollute the environment with billowing choking fumes. Not only do they overcharge tourists (my son-in-law's grandmother here from the UK was charged 50c for the short trip from Borg Olivier Street to the Seabank Hotel)! But now, instead of apologising, they want to have a street rumble!

There are many drivers who are polite, honest and helpful but the driver of the bus in question (I have the number) just gives them all a bad name.

And, by the way, where was the uniform that his union agreed he should wear in return for all the government subsidies?

Perhaps the PR lady from the Malta Transport Authority might have a quiet word with him!