What makes roads so dangerous

Time and again we have read or seen on the news that people died in the most awful of road accidents. When one sees footage on the news or photographs in the papers, it makes one ask: But how did the smashed cars end up facing the wrong direction, upside down, in a ditch and even on the wrong side of the road? Why are so many lives lost unnecessarily? What is the cause of all this?

There are four reasons.

The first one is the irresponsibility of certain drivers. These people, who are a cancer to society, are selfish, short-tempered and ill-mannered with little or no interest in other people's lives. They can be loaded with money and, therefore, buy the fastest cars and abuse the roads as if they were the only ones using them.

The ill-tempered ones think they also own the roads and can break all the rules of the supposedly safe Highway Code. They are a menace and should be penalised heavily when caught breaking the law. It is not fair that a law-abiding, careful driver should leave home to go to work in the morning and end up dead because of some irresponsible motorist. When this happens the life of a family is upset as it faces life without the bread winner and is denied the love of the deceased. Yet, the guilty party will probably get a light sentence, if any, and gets on with his/her life as if nothing has happened. S/he can continue living with their family and probably, soon ruin somebody else`s life.

It should not be allowed. The law must change and punish the culprits severely also by making them pay damages to the bereaved family, even if, admittedly, nothing can replace a life.

Unless action is taken, the number of road deaths will keep rising.

The second reason is the roads. Some accidents often happen because a driver decides to swerve to avoid some pothole or debris that fell from trucks whose load was not covered adequately, not secured or were overloaded. Diesel is at times spilled too. Roads have improved in certain areas but, contrary to what is being portrayed in the media, there are many more roads needing urgent attention and that does not mean filling potholes with a bit of asphalt. Roads need to be done up and furnished with the proper street furniture and proper markings and then have the rules enforced.

A third reason is the use of mobile phones while driving. How did we live before the mobile was introduced? Why, oh why do we have to drive and use the mobile while driving? So many times accidents happen because of this. In other countries this is a serious offence. Enforcing the law in this regard could also be lucrative in terms of fines collected. But this should not be the responsibility of the police force, nor the traffic wardens. A specialised branch should be set up to focus on these law breakers. Then, perhaps, the high percentage of deaths will drop.

The fourth and the worst culprit of all is the Malta Transport Authority. The Driving and Licensing Department needs a real shake-up. What is being allowed to happen should not happen. For instance, it was recently announced that driving instruction tests were to recommence. The situation there leaves a lot to be desired. Four very qualified examiners left in disgust. Driving instructors were then subjected to an aptitude test, followed by some training to improve their instruction.

But driving instruction tests stopped when the person doing such tests left. When one of them wrote to the government and offered his services for continuity's sake, he was told he could apply when a call to fill vacancies was made!Two years later and a huge backlog of applications, driving instruction tests are now resuming. There need not have been a backlog if the government were not so stubborn. Driving instruction tests would have continued to be a hard but a fair examination.

What will happen now? One can only augur that the training of driving instructors is taken seriously because an incompetent driving instructor can mean an incompetent driver and a bad driver risks causing more road fatalities. This should not happen.