I have always enjoyed Lino Spiteri's Monday Talking Point articles, and I continue to look forward to doing so. But on reading the article on speed limits and taxation (March 2), I find I have to take issue with him in a number of areas.
In the first place, it is not necessarily "speeding" - a very loose term in itself - that causes accidents, but excessive speed and bad and/or dangerous driving for the conditions. Exceeding an unrealistic speed limit may be an infringement but is not, in itself, necessarily "speeding", as he terms it. Neither is it necessarily irresponsible.
His argument about the minimal time saved by increasing an average speed by a given factor is "mixing apples and pears" and not up to his usual high standard. Travelling times are not dependent only on speed but on road, weather, traffic and any number of other conditions. A very simple example will suffice.
A 16-mile trip from Mellieħa to Valletta during rush hours on a weekday can take more than an hour - say 25.7 km/h. Would the slow speed make it a safe journey? Most emphatically it would not - think traffic jams, time lost from work, stress, front-to-rear collisions, whiplash injuries, roundabout carve-ups, road rage and so on.
The same trip on a leisurely Sunday morning to hear Sunday Mass at St John's Co-Cathedral would take 30 to 35 minutes - say an ambling 48.3 km/h. Would it be safer? Certainly - but to achieve this safe journey one would have probably safely gone over continuous white lines to avoid the proverbial Sunday driver with his freehold lease on the geometric centre of the road.
Conversely, and here I tend to agree with Mr Spiteri, to increase this average speed even by 16 km/h on the quiet Sunday morning would be very difficult and probably hazardous, and achieve little, while to attempt a 48 km/h average on a weekday would be next to impossible and potentially suicidal. But a spot speed of 60 km/h on a deserted bypass off peak hours is very slow indeed, and even on the Msida/Pietà seafront, a good double carriageway that allows a free flow of traffic, a good proportion of the traffic moves at between 70 and 80 km/h in safety.
Again, the method used to achieve the quoted "85 per cent of the average speed" used to set these speed limits is open to question. Over what period was the average speed computed? The average speed of rush hour traffic, moving at the speed of the slowest commercial vehicle on the road, is vastly different to that of traffic on the same road off peak hours. So is one speed safe and the other unsafe?
This brings me to my third point of divergence - that the whole thing is nothing else than a thinly veiled fund raising exercise. It is the general opinion that the ADT, in saying that its only interest is road safety, is being, if not totally mendacious, certainly politically economical with the truth. A sober 40-year-old on a deserted highway at 65 km/h is not unsafe while the majority of inebriated youngsters leaving Paceville in the early morning are potential fatal accidents. Any policeman or motor insurance claims manager will confirm that the overwhelming proportion of serious accidents happen to young men under 25 or 30 years of age, after midnight.
Presumably, the ADT are not aware of this, because if they were there would be policemen stationed outside Paceville, Buġibba and Marsascala with breathalysers at the ready. But then breathalysers and mobile police patrols cost money, while speed cameras, once installed, continue to operate at no cost, and are excellent earners.