[attach id=267641 size="medium"]Was it ethanol that contaminated all four sparking plugs and made them go orange?[/attach]

This month I was hoping to be able to include a short potted biography of the various people who go into the making of the Transport Board. Sadly, except for the fact that one lady member, according to reports reaching this desk, is a fully qualified dentist, my editor and I are at a loss as to how to fathom out who these transport experts are.

Readers owning cars made in the 1990s and earlier (and some as late as 2007) who took the trouble to read my submission on the devastating effects of the ethanol found in our fuel may be interested in the fact that my own three classic cars stretching from 1954 to 1980 are all going much better with the addition of Millers ‘e’ supplement, which I get locally in St Paul’s Bay.

This is not because the agent was going to supply St Paul’s Bay but because my local service station was already aware that ethanol in old cars, even at five per cent, plays long-term havoc with their engines, and so brings in a limited quantity largely consumed by myself and family members who own various old petrol-engined Land Rovers.

I still maintain that every garage forecourt in Malta and Gozo should have ethanol supplement additives on display. There are three manufacturers in the UK whose products have been approved by the Federation of British Historic vehicle Clubs, but only Millers is somewhat established in Malta. How about Gozo?

I am also in the process of bringing in a couple of 20-metre coils of petrol pipe suitable for, I hope, all the old British cars. These petrol pipes are ethanol resistant, and so all the old cars owned by this family will not suffer any more corrosion, blocked petrol filters or damaged rubber pipes, and I’m told there are SU ethanol-friendly carburettor kits now available from the UK. But how about the other 120,000-plus vehicles on our roads built prior to 2007?

• In early July I read a letter saying that speed cameras should be placed on the fast section of the St Paul’s Bay Bypass. For starters, these are not speed cameras, they are speed/safety cameras. In fact, the letter writer was annoyed at noise levels, which can be exceedingly high, especially if the ‘racing’ types remain in second gear to deliberately annoy the hundreds of people who obviously camp out on the sides of this country bypass.

Quite frankly, if vehicles are using this stretch of road in fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh gear, the noise levels would be decently low, and at 120km/h, horror of horror safety per se fails to impress thousands of us who are totally at home at speeds far higher than this. However, there is the all-important fact that 80km/h is our current maximum speed, and according to a lengthy report, the three roads where this speed was going to be allowed are: the Mriehel Bypass (where everyone slows down to go past the camera before deciding on their own maximum speed), the straightest section of the St Paul’s Bay Bypass and the top end of the Mellieħa Bypass, a road that has had many millions spent on it and now carries a delightful 50km/h speed limit. This is odd, as the Island Car Club uses this as one of their legal hill climbs, and racing vehicles have been clocked at well over 160km/h.

It has been proven in probably every Western country, including the US, that if maximum speeds are posted at levels the motoring public considers to be too low, they will not be respected. TM please take note

Fancy that I cannot exceed 50km/h in my Classic 1954 Aston, and yet on club days, everyone and his bathtub are belting up the hill as fast as their personalities or cars allow, and quite extraordinarily, people fail to fall off the road at three times the speed decreed by our so-called experts on the use of speed.

It has been proven in probably every Western country, including the US, that if maximum speeds are posted at levels the motoring public at large considers to be too low, they will not be respected. Transport Malta please take note.

As a result of the management of the department within Transport Malta responsible for road signs being somewhat short of motoring skills, thousands of motorists who know and care about the use of the correct words are totally embarrassed by the multitude of signs that read ‘Speed Kills’. It is the irresponsible or inopportune use of speed that can kill.

Speed in itself has no bearing on the subject of death, or most of us who persist in totally ignoring the maximum speed limit when we deem it safe to do so would have died many long miles ago.

I would like to see the signs reading: ‘The incorrect use of speed can kill’ because, in fact, it is going too fast or too slowly that can cause deadly accidents.

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