The Highway Code states that vehicles must stop at 'Stop' signs - you must stop with your front wheels behind the 'Stop' line but my 19-year-old grand-daughter Mich had to go to arbitration to make her point when her car was struck by a builder's van that failed to stop at a 'stop' sign.

Despite what the code stipulates, it's up to the aggrieved party to insist on the provisions as they are not legally binding in themselves, but will be used in a court of law when push comes to shove.

Since the advent of the Malta Transport Authority, I have been fighting a losing battle to have various junctions changed from 'Stop' to 'Give Way'. I now highlight the turning from Bidnija either towards Mosta or St Paul's Bay. Visibility is great, about 150 metres. Vehicles are approaching slowly because of a very slippery corner and yet vehicles coming up from Bidnija, often farm vehicles, heavily laden and difficult to start if they have to stop at this junction, are legally informed that they must stop whether the road is clear or not. In a nutshell, this is very bad planning, and as a 'Give Way' junction carries the same penalties, it would make far more sense to do the job properly.

The same can be said for vehicles joining Mdina Road, Attard, near the cemetery. The junction makes one stop, and, of course, vehicles only obey if an oncoming vehicle is in the inner lane. This ill-thought out signage is especially daft as the junction is about 50 metres beyond the 50km/h speed/accident camera. This means that the ADT cannot even argue that vehicles are approaching at very high speed (50km/h maximum dry day stopping distance 23 metres).

Now, every summer I moan that the standard of driving drops ever lower. This is factually due to my driving during the hottest part of the day when it's known abroad that the driver's concentration is at pretty low ebb. Between 1 and 4 p.m. every driver should be aware that even with an air-conditioned car it's harder to keep at peak levels of concentration, and reaction times tend to drop, often pretty severely.

This is the period when it's vital to maintain a two-second gap between you and the car ahead, and remember that for some unfathomed reason this is the period when even the less scary drivers seem to approach junctions too fast, only to emerge further than intended into the main road, thus worrying all concerned quite immoderately.

As a former driving examiner, I am fully aware that the team are also aware of this sad summer 'drop off'. Do you really think that all the driving instructors are up to the mark when their learners' levels of concentration are in question? The answer, if the instructor reading the paper as the learner coped with Burmurrad traffic on a hot Saturday morning, must surely be pretty negative, to say the least.

And how about the instructor who sanctioned a driver change by insisting that the learner parked on a double yellow line?

These lines may only be stopped on if the driver is instructed to do so by a policeman or warden, or if the confounded vehicle won't work.

That same day, I saw an instructor make a learner double-park quite unnecessarily while he went into a tobacconist/stationer.

I'm told that changes have been made in the managerial side of the driving examiners department as well as in Licensing and Testing. As long as the union for the driving instructors slows or stops the modernisation programme that will bring examiners and instructors in line with teaching and then testing, managers can be rotated monthly and nothing will improve.

It's neither a unit manager nor a director who will have the muscle to improve things.

It needs a darn great 'kick' from the minister and the board, not aimed internally, but at the seemingly totally autonomous or independent team of driving instructors who remind me more of the good old Keystone Cops than a band of truly intelligent, dedicated men and women whose one aim in their working lives is to train safe, reliable drivers.

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