In his letter ‘Road death rates’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, October 1), Jean Karl Soler expresses his opposition to a recommendation that Malta should step up law enforcement on our roads by increasing traffic fines and introducing a points system.
Dr Soler implies that we should not worry that, on average, 300 people suffer grievous injury or death every year in road accidents in Malta. He suggests that we should just carry on regardless, because road deaths and injury have “remained stable over the past five years”.
Such a preposterous attitude typifies Malta’s state of denial of road death and injury rates whereby these continue to be accepted as a fact of life with the shrug of a shoulder. Such retrograde thinking as expressed by Dr Soler contrasts eerily with the Swedish approach to ‘Vision Zero’ road safety as summarised in six simple words: “No loss of life is acceptable”.
The Swedish credo is based on the basic fact that we are human and make mistakes; while the road system needs to keep us moving, traffic policies must aim to protect us at every turn.
Dr Soler quotes as “crucial information” that we already have “the lowest national speed limits in the world”. This is not so at all. Urban speed limits of 30 km/h are now being widely adopted in many countries because these have been shown to lower road accident and death rates by making the environment more tolerant of occasional human error. Similarly, speed limits on motorways are becoming the norm. According to modern urban design concepts, 30 km/h streets should now be part of the urban environment where people live.
Dr Soler repeats the old chestnut that “according to Europe-wide statistics” we are “among Europe’s safest drivers”. Such data is based on deaths per million population – not on distance travelled; they are not applicable to road and driving conditions in Malta. We have no motorways, and car trips are short. If traffic mortality were to be based on kilometres travelled, then it is likely that Malta’s serious injury and death statistics would be found unacceptably high, which indeed they are.
Finally, Dr Soler tries to baffle readers by stating that the “reality of this trend” has been hidden from readers “by focusing on the raw number of deaths per annum”, which is the “least reliable statistic”. What Dr Soler appears to be saying is illogical because, in the real universe, people die at the end of their allotted lifespan and not prematurely in a road accident.
Sadly, Dr Soler’s incomprehensible reasoning does not support his objection to the introduction of stiffer fines and points systems in order to help decrease death and injury on our roads. He also conveniently omits the huge social impact of short-term or permanent disability associated with road accidents. One death on the road is one death too many. Anything that mitigates the scourge of road accidents in Malta is justified.