Speed cameras have managed to make roads relatively safer, where they have been installed. Unfortunately, speed cameras are the only language certain drivers understand, especially when bills start making their way through their letter box.

The irony of speed cameras is that they have pushed maniacs to other roads where they have become conspicuously absent. Most of the roads targeted by speed maniacs have now become residential areas which in their view have an innate capacity for speeding. St Joseph Street in Hamrun is a typical example (with apologies for the many other roads that are experiencing the same fate).

There are many roads dying for a speed camera, lest more traffic-related deaths are to occur in the future. Local councils should identify such roads and ask whoever is responsible to install a speed camera.

Non-residential roads which already have a speed camera, the likes of the Bahar ic-Caghaq Coast Road, (the reason for picking on such a road is obvious enough), should have multiple cameras installed at various points. This way the likelihood of sudden braking because of an approaching speed camera is diminished and over speeding is controlled all the way (hopefully!).

I strongly believe that education works on the majority of people, but it is the absolute minority which causes the majority of problems. More speed cameras are obviously not the solution to all traffic-related problems but I am sure that if the penalties are just (like loss of driving licence), more speed cameras can help eradicate a few more maniacs from our streets, maybe for good. Remember, it only takes one maniac, over-speeding only once, to part anyone from his family forever!