I recently asked a taxi driver to slow down. It was very embarrassing but then I wonder why in our culture speeding is so accepted that even I feel embarrassed to ask the driver I pay to slow down.

I drove double-decker buses for a year almost every day in the UK. I have held a car licence for 15 years. I am also licensed to ride motorbikes and traversed Europe multiple times by car and motorbike. So driving and mobility is not a remote subject to me. The opposite actually; transport planning and analysing traffic flows is my profession.

If I feel embarrassed as a young male to ask a taxi driver to stick to the speed limit, then how do elderly people or women feel when they sit in a stranger’s car?

Dear Maltese (taxi) drivers, I know you are the best drivers ever with skills at par with Formula One racers. I know the motorway-style road invites 120km/h, but it is still a densely populated area and it is 60km/h limit for a reason. I also understand that you know better than the transport authority what speeds are safe on the roads, but just for the sake of ease I beg you to slow down.

Getting there five minutes early is not worth the risk of spending weeks in hospitals or worse. I will pay an extra €5 for taking five minutes longer – that’s a generous hourly rate that even I don’t earn but will pay for my friends’ and my own safety.

Have you heard about our Italian neighbours discussing 30km/h limit for every town in the country? You know towns: cities where people cook, eat, work and sleep. Where here instead many Maltese drivers show off their terrible music taste while accelerating with leaving tyre smoke and the sound of a nuclear explosion after them.

We can do better than that. We can all realise that going slower is better for all of us. Simply explained: if we all go slower, we all get there safely. Whenever you drive over the speed limit, you are contributing to the accidents and fatalities in Malta because you suggest to other drivers that it is OK to speed.

So again, I know you have the skills of F1 racing champions, but for the sake of others, don’t encourage the rest to speed.