I was thinking about this piece while driving to work in Attard, down the Rabat road. Just out of Saqqajja, I saw the telltale dusted-down oil slick at the roadside where a car crashed into a tree.

Further down, I saw cyclists happily pedalling along the Rabat-Żebbuġ bypass, in the slow lane of one of the few fast two-lane roads on the islands. I then drove past the new bus interchange just outside Ta’ Qali. On to the only wide part of the road to Attard, where overtaking of buses and other slow traffic is possible but prohibited by double white lines.

Why has the widest stretch of the Rabat-Attard road been made into an artificial obstacle for fast-moving traffic?

This wide road is the domain of traffic wardens who wait to impose road taxes on motorists who take advantage of the only safe and easy overtaking spot between Mrieħel and Dingli.

There is now a new practice in place. A policeman has recently started to haunt this part of the road to make up his monthly tally of traffic tickets.

If you overtake when he is there, you are not booked once but three times: one for crossing a white line, another for driving on the other side of the road and another for changing direction without signalling.

Not that he will tick the appropriate boxes when he gives you the ticket, mind you. You will only know this when you receive notification of the three court cases many months later, when you would have forgotten what you actually did on the day.

Even worse, if you fail to see him, he will add a fourth ticket: for not obeying the legitimate orders of a policeman. How can you do that when you don’t see the man, hiding behind a tree? Four tickets for overtaking slow traffic on a road wide enough to take two buses abreast on either side, with room to spare. Admittedly, it is illegal but so is driving at 61 kilometres per hour on the best two-lane road in Żejtun. It is basically just another senseless road tax. Why not facilitate overtaking when there is space for it rather than block it with artificial means imposed by fines?

Some readers may now be thinking that it serves me right to get a ticket for breaking the law. But if one should prevent cars from crossing white lines, why not police the Ta’ Qali bus interchange area? When a bus stops in one of the bays, all cars overtaking that bus will cross a white line. That is illegal, too. But is it unsafe? The road is far narrower there and the risk of overtaking much greater. The number of tickets issued would be much greater than 200 metres further down the road. The ideal solution would have been to put the bus interchange at the widest part of the road, where overtaking a stationary bus would be safer. The current situation does not make sense. It is as if Transport Malta planners want to make life difficult for motorists and offer opportunities to policemen and wardens to “educate” drivers with fines. And what about cyclists who ignore a much more important safety rule? How many cyclists have been booked for ignoring the cycle lanes on the Żebbuġ, Rabat and Mġarr roads and joyriding on arterial roads? They force cars to change lanes or cross to the other side of the road to overtake them safely. Is this not a hazard? Does one expect a car to drive slowly behind a joyriding cyclist? Where in Europe are cyclists allowed to joyride on major roads and ignore cycle lanes?

Back to the Rabat road and the lack of road barriers. If we are serious about road safety in Malta, then we should work hard to make our roads safer, at every opportunity. Narrow roads with trees by the roadside should have crash barriers. No lame excuses please.

Cyclists should be banned from obstructing other road users, especially when they have an available cycle lane. Bus interchanges should not be set up at the narrowest part of a busy two-way road. Opportunities to overtake slow traffic should be maximised to avoid frustrating drivers. Abroad, road design is driver-friendly. Slow moving traffic is made to drive by the side to allow faster traffic to pass. With road planning respectful of road users, road users would, in turn, respect road signage.

In the end, I suspect nothing will change. The recent letters on traffic and transportation management in Malta leave little room for hope.