Increasingly atrocious driving standards, coupled with poor enforcement of the traffic laws, must make Malta one of the worst disciplined countries for driving in Europe. If only our authorities were as keen to save the life of a person as they are of a bird, driving standards would be much safer.

In the old days we used to label a bad driver as a “farmer driver” but nowadays one finds poor driving standards across the full spectrum of drivers, especially the younger generation and motorcyclists who seem to think that the traffic laws do not apply to them.

Hardly any driver obeys the rules and it seems every other driver has one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a mobile phone glued to his or her ears and that goes all the way across the board from cars, delivery vans to lorry drivers.

We are badly in need of a national safe driving TV and newspaper education campaign along with a police squad dedicated to enforcement of traffic regulations, preferably in unmarked vehicles.

We are all aware that trying to instil discipline for safe driving standards with just the motorbike traffic police squad simply does not work. I fear that the authorities rely more on government annual statistics – however, surely they must be fully conversant with what actually happens on our roads – as, otherwise, something would have been done to reduce weekly deaths and injuries. The UK is lauded for its high standard of driving and adherence to the rules but this is only achieved by impartial law enforcement and tough penalties for non-adherence.

Again, while I am against the unnecessary slaughter of all animals including birds, why are the authorities not enforcing the traffic laws that save human lives while spending so much money and publicity to protect birds to appease the EU? How about starting to take action to appease the victims’ families?