Wardens' slow response to collision calls

Some weeks ago I was involved in a car accident four minutes away from the wardens' head office in Msida and I immediately phoned them to come and take a sketch and the details of the accident.

It was a very cold winter evening, so cold that I had to keep the engine of the car running to keep some warmth in the car. Half an hour later I phoned to see if the wardens were coming and I was assured that they would soon be there. Another half hour later and minus quite a bit of fuel, I phoned again and was told that the wardens had come but they could not take my case because it fell under the jurisdiction of some other district. I was again assured that the wardens were on the way.

Another half hour later and minus more fuel, I asked what was going on and they said that the wardens would be coming from Floriana as they were attending to another accident there. Frustrated as I was, I waited patiently and tried to console myself that this delay was due to the very bad weather we were experiencing that day. Half an hour after that and practically on an empty fuel tank, the wardens turned up and we were on our way home soon after that.

A few days ago (March 28), my daughter had a slight accident just two minutes away from the warden's office in Msida on a beautiful sunny day. Since the third party at first refused to fill in the bumper-to-bumper form, the police marked the position of each car's respective tyres on the road and asked them to move their cars to the side and call the wardens. All this was done and the wardens were called at 8.15 a.m. Meanwhile, I left Rabat and was in Msida at 8.45 a.m. At about 9 a.m. I phoned the wardens' office and was told that they had already received a phone call about the accident and that the wardens would soon be on their way because they were seeing to another accident in Bahar ic-Caghaq. At 9.45 a.m. the third party, like everyone else, was eager to get to work so she decided to fill in the bumper-to-bumper from and all of us went to work rather late. My daughter received a phone call from the wardens at about 10 a.m to see if she was still on site, to which her answer was the obvious.

Meanwhile, I decided to pop into the wardens' office to complain and (you know what?) I was told that I would have to wait for five minutes before I could speak to someone! To which I replied that I had waited for one hour and three quarters for the wardens to turn up at an accident and did they expect me to wait another five minutes to complain about it?

On seeing this commotion, some gentleman came out to me and tried to be sympathetic. That was not good enough for me and I left stating that I would write to the papers. I added that when we park wrongly, the wardens are very efficient and instantly turn up from all directions.

It is highly unlikely that the delay in these two cases is a mere coincidence and perhaps a radical change is needed to ensure that the efficiency of dealing with traffic accidents be brought on par with the efficiency the same office has managed to bring about when fining John Citizen.