Problem with buses is their drivers

On my first bus ride in Malta, when the driver started the engine all the Maltese passengers made the sign of the cross. I thought then that my dream of a car-less life in Malta might turn into a nightmare. And it has.

I have been forced off an empty bus at night in a strange neighbourhood because the driver wanted to go home. Buses have driven away as my foot was on the step, driven away before my other foot was on the pavement, or refused to let me depart at my stop because the driver was on his mobile phone.

I have been thrown to the floor as the driver jerked to a fast takeoff, passed at bus stops by half empty buses, sat among rubbish and a petrol can, waited for the driver to order his lunch, watched in horror as the driver ate his lunch while driving at breakneck speed, been cheated on the fare, lied to that the bus was the wrong bus and told to take another one and suffered hours of ear splitting noise from the driver's lousy radios.

Malta has worse public transportation than any other Third World country I have lived in or visited. The new and modern revamp of the buses heralded by the government is just another sick joke on the Maltese people because it has no programme of eliminating its worse problem: the drivers.