Travelling down December 13 Road from Valletta in the direction of Marsa, on the second turning on the left there is a junction that leads motorists up onto a flyover to the road that leads to Mrieħel Bypass and the Santa Venera tunnels.
Traffic on December 13 Road coming from Marsa to Valletta also have a junction on their left to join this same road towards the bypass or tunnels.
At the point where traffic from the first junction meets traffic from the second, Transport Malta has decided to paint signs on the road indicating that traffic from the first junction has to stop to give way to traffic coming from the second junction, giving the latter right of way.
In Malta, where steering wheels are on the right-hand side of cars and cars are supposed to drive on the left-hand side of the road, drivers approaching intersections are supposed to give way to cars coming from their right. There is a sound logic for this traffic system, but alas, it does not seem to apply in Malta!
By inverting the right of way at this junction, TM is forcing drivers coming from the first junction to stop, crane their necks over to the passenger side of their cars in an effort to look past the blind corner of their rear left-hand side C-pillars, to try and see whether there is oncoming traffic from the second junction, while at the same time being careful not to crash into the vehicles in front of them trying to do the same thing.
The manoeuvre is made even more difficult because, the above-mentioned oncoming traffic from the second junction typically approaches at high speed over the brow of the uphill road leading from December 13 Road to the flyover, giving drivers from the first junction very little time to react.
Under the previous right-of-way at this junction, cars from the second junction joined the traffic flow on the inside (slow) lane, as is normally the case.
But now, when cars from the first junction do manage to join the flow of traffic, they are invariably travelling at a slow speed, since they have been forced to come to a complete stop, but they are joining traffic in the right-hand (overtaking/fast) lane.
This decision by Transport Malta, in my humble opinion, is a recipe for traffic chaos at this junction. And it will become a blackspot for crashes, if not traffic injury and death. And traffic jams will be regularly created, courtesy of Transport Malta.
I shall be avoiding this junction like the plague from now on and will use an alternative route to return home from the office. Readers may want to do the same, and in the meantime perhaps launch a petition to try to get Transport Malta to reverse its illogical decision.