101 bus drivers fined

@P CAMILLERI..........I totally agree, we have been promised by THIS goverment that we shall benefit from COMPETITION> After all joining the E.U. this one of the BIGGEST ADVANTAGES we were ALL promised as a whole NATION!!!
Speed up GOVT. please!!

Now that Malta is an E.U. state what is holding the goverment to issue a Permit for other Public Transport Providers? After all we have heard that the present drivers are OVERLOADED with work, is it time they need a break?
For any new provider it will BE difficult, as they will not be subsidized from our TAXES!!!
Either way, the present drivers will be still at an advantage!!!

@Daniel Russell-absollutly correct you hit the nail right on the head. One question for you guys out there and please correct me if i'm wrong,but why cann't the Maltese government give a permit now that Malta is in the EU and the Maltese are FREE to work in our countries

While on holiday recently in Malta I lost count of how many times I heard people exclaim "Hawn kulhadd jghamel li jrid!!"

Sadly, for I love Malta, how true.

@Jannie Hartmann. You appear to be non-Maltese, so welcome to our shores.

FYI the Maltese voted overwhelmingly for EU membership in a referendum and this was confirmed shortly afterwards in a general election more than 5 years ago. Nothing to do with a narrow margin.

I would like to point out firstly that i agree with you all. But the bus drivers will continue to abuse the maltese people for two reasons, 1) their actions will always be protected by the government, 2) The good maltese people rely upon them too much. There is only one solution, a boycott of all buses. everyone pulls together, we run car pools, to assist those without cars, and show the ADT and the government that the Maltese people cannot be taken,quite literally 'for a ride'. Everyone pull together!

70 Euros fine is the norm these days. Two weeks ago, I got fined 70 euros for putting a billboard on my balcony that read ' Welcome to this Shithole'.
It took the court and the police two years, and eight appearances in court to come to my punishment. What a mockery, what an insult to the taxpayer. What a waste of time. I only got prosecuted because of who I am.
It has been ten months since we adopted the euro, and the person facing me, told me, that I was going to be fined thirty Maltese lira, and that I have to work it out into euros.
Dear Gonzi, can you please add a free calculator to these clever clogs along with the energy saving bulbs.

seventy euro? yeah right that will reaaallly deter them from doing it again.

70 euros is nothing for deviating from their public duty. ATP you have had your day and need to be replaced. Surely you would not have been insured bus drivers and unsuspecting tourists wouldnt know.
Malta, get rid of this dinosaur and get new modern buses with trained staff, proper rules of carraige, a new world class bus station for Valletta what a capital deserves and as Hartman states below don't be the laughing stock.

In cases like this, isn't the Prosecution led by the Police?

Did it appeal against the sentence?

Oh just great!!! And I was half wondering whether or not to believe my 75 year old mum, more often than not, that she's down at Fond Ghadir waiting for the ONLY bus that takes her to Karin Grech Hospital to visit my sick dad there and the bus just never turns up, come rain or shine .... some great service provided by the ADT!!! And 70 euros is all they're fined??? They must have charged tourists alot more than that!! Come off it ... this is some big joke .... on us of course!! What about refunding citizens for the loss of time, money, missed appointments and broken hearts?? Is this the service we are expected to sit back and accept? Does anyone even read or take action on letters/comments posted in The Times? ADT would do well to give an explanation!!

lol@Alex tanti, x ghandu x jaqsam l-UE!?!

Correction. I was fined Lm30 (€70) and not €30 for doing 56 instead of 50 in Attard. Same as the bus drivers. The difference is only God knows how much money they made out of the tourists transportation and I had to fork it out of my weekly wage. What an injustice. These morons (not all of them) do what they please, their service is a shambles, they offend people, they speed, overcharge, pollute our air and what have you and for all this they are rewarded by the courts and exempted from the 'polluter pays' principle. DISGUSTED!!!!!

This is surely not the kind of EU accountablility/good goverance I voted for...
seems Alfred Sant/KMB were right after all...

Now that you lot were voted in by a narrow margin to join us in the eu, if by chance operate the same modern public transport same as we have in Holland and in Germany, abide by the law and no abuse to the tourists which is your bread and butter as we say and respect also to your own people by keeping your old buses up to date to reduce hazadous pollution everything would be honky dorey Yes? The fine is a laugh.

some are asking when will they be fined for their exhaust.. and i add from alleged use of light heating oil? The answer was clear in the last budget... NEVER!

they have been exempted from the "polluter pays" principle!!

what a joke!

At least when we are diagnosed with lung cancer thanks to the fumes provided by the buses we can all go and die at Mater Dei.
Where are our MP's, MEP's , wardens , ADT , Minister etc etc , blah blah blah.

Carl - so true it makes you cry to see how our legal system works!
Our children sit in the back of our cars breathing in THICK BLACK BELCHING FUMES from our local transport, you can actually feel the particles hitting your skin, and once stuck in traffic behind 1 or 2 of these buses you have nowhere to escape, thank you!!! How long must we continue to put up with being Poisoned this way????

Victor Spiteri first welcomes public transport reform not for the obvious reasons such as passenger safety, bus punctuality or service quality, but to ensure the drivers get 'better conditions', and now defends drivers for doing something they blatantly shouldn't have?

Shouldn't the president of the public transport association be impartial and not blatantly favour the drivers time after time? Why don't you just rename your organisation the Bus Drivers Layabout and Do Whatever We Like Association?

Wow, and I had to cough up €30 for doing 56kms instead of 50kms and another €11.65 for, according to the warden I went over the white central line. This when I was not even using the car at the time. What a farse of a legal system we've got. Did the court bother to find out how much profit they made out of it . The article does not even say if it happened more than once by each driver. I'm sure they'll all stick to the rules and laws now that they had to pay €70. Break the laws and rules - it's worth the while for some.

70 Ewro? Zgur worth it , ghax gabuhom mir-rotot bit-turisti!!!!

70 euros fine! They get double that in just another tourist transport this afternoon!

I'm thinking of buying a bus and doing the same.

....and I wait and wait and wait on the bus stop!!

E70 fine? hehe. Surely they will not do it again.

Only in Malta!!

70 Euros near the profit gained from tourists transport are peanuts....will the guys do it again...Bets are open....I place 1000 euros on the plate....

So Mr Spiteri is happy to represent the lot on accounts of abuse. Is there any dignity left in some people in these islands? I would have told them : go on represent yourself, make a fool of yourselves in court, keep tarnishing the fame you have from your commuters!

This is the case:

We TAXPAYERS subsidize the 'diesel' used by route buses, but can we be assured that all the subsidized diesel is being used ONLY on route buses and when they are serving the routes??

We TAXPAYERS subsidize the purchase of these buses, which are ALWAYS used for 'private' work;

We TAXPAYERS are left stranded, while the bus owners are using their route bus for transporting tourists, simultaneously while they are supposed to be servig their respective routes;

We TAXPAYERS are paying for the pollution that these buses 'contribute to the environment', by paying higher taxes on our private vechiles, while these 'poor' bus owners pay a nuisance, when Article 174 (2) of the EC Treaty states: "...environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay" , and therefore our Govt is using its powers and abusing on us citizens who are made to pay the share of these irresponsable bus owners!

our COURTS find these 100 owners GUILTY of "using their buses for tourist transport when they should have been serving the routes." AND they are fined €70 (Lm30) each!!

VIVA Malta! GonziPN .......take action!!!

Exemplary sentence!! In the future drivers will surely think twice before committing similar actions.

Only in Malta !!!!!!!

Another comical farce!

This is a real show from the Goverment!!!!............

Hey that's not fair!
The priest to whom I confess to, charges me (ordered donation) Eur.95 whenever I admit to swear when I'm stuck behind a bus, barely seeing through its exhaust, on our cursed senseless single lane 'main' roads.

€70 fine per bus driver is peanuts. We do not know how many times each bus driver has committed this kind of contravention whilst we wait on the bus stop in the sun, in the cold or in the rain as the case may be, for the stupid bus to arrive.
The people demand an overhaul in the public transport without any further delay.
@ Austin Gatt. We cannot take it any longer. Liberalize this sector immediately. You should show your muscles with these people as well, as you did with all the law abiding citizens on the water and electricity bills.

Probably this years Strina collection will have to be used for them because they are not able to afford the €70.

70euros!!!!!

Minister and ADT be warned. The toxic fumes of these buses are killing us and our children. You have done nothing about it, and soon there will be individuals suing you in court for huge financial damages (remember asbestos???)
250 days into this legislature and NOTHING has been done, except a load of stupid hype and talk, talk, talk. WAKE UP ADT.

when i see these good for nothing bus drivers on the road who blocked all of malta last summer do you remember that,do you know what happens when you block one of these drivers on the road they go crazy,so now when i see one on the road i drive realy slow and they go crazy and i tell them did you forget what u did to the maltese people last summer and that realy gets them,at the end i know i can outrun them and they dont have the speed to get me,try it out 2mrw in the rush hour.

wow that's a real deterrent not to do it again for sure .

I think this calls for a transport strike. How can a bus driver afford seventy euro? How can he support his family now?

Wow. E70! that should stop them!!

Iktar skandli mill qorti

These are subsidized by us, and they make extra profit for them

70 euros fine,THEY WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN NOW,THAT'S FOR SURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats fine, but when are the bus drivers going to be fined or at least held accountable for the massive amounts of exhaust belching out of their buses?. This is the real issue here, I'm sick of seeing buses emit ridiculous amounts poisonous gas and nothing being done about it.

Great job!!! that 'hefty' fine really make the bus drivers think twice what to do next time!!!! Come on local authorities. Don't you think that such a fine is a farse?!?!

only 70 euros??
god knows how much they get for transporting tourists and from their commissions. and we are left stranded.