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I’ve written before on the intrusion of advertising billboards on major arterial roads. They can draw attention from drivers whose business is to give attention to driving.

In Italy, the law stipulates that advertising billboards have to be several hundred metres from the highway edge. Often enough, they cause obstruction to the flow of traffic during the operation to set them up, frequently causing traffic congestion and tailbacks.

Some are placed so close to traffic ways that, with the perfect storm, strong wind could overcome the weight of the ballast set at the bases of such billboards and can tip them over onto oncoming vehicles.

The latest is the presence of a billboard that encroaches by at least 25 centimetres onto a major traffic way and even at a bend: the slip road from the Marsa-Ħamrun bypass just before the approach from the Marsa side to the Santa Venera tunnels leading onto the start of the Mrieħel bypass.

A miscalculation in speed and/or a slippery surface from spillage of grit or fuel can force a vehicle to the outer edge of this bend to make contact with this protruding frame.

The situation will surely be of importance if a vehicle actually makes contact with the crash barrier at speed. Damage to protruding parts of vehicles (rear view mirrors of commercial vehicles) may be of minimal importance. But it could tear the arm off an unsuspecting truck driver who has that body part resting on the side window’s edge. At worst, a passenger car which has lost control and slides along the crash barrier will end up with the roof of the vehicle torn off, possibly together with the heads of the occupants.

Ironically, the caption on the billboard states “Call the best to kill...” Transport Malta should have seen this. If they haven’t, now they know.