I have been coming to Malta on and off now for more than 30 years and, in that time, my observations on the standard of driving has seen a huge drop from reasonably good to downright awful.

So far on my latest visit I have regularly witnessed all of the following: speeding, undertaking, no signals, barging on to roundabouts, failing to stop for pedestrians on zebra crossings, overtaking at blind bends and hills and, on one occasion, driving without a single hand on the steering wheel as one hand had an ice cream cone and the other holding the phone to the driver’s ear.

For a population of about 400,000 it would now seem there is about the same number of cars on the island’s roads, which is all the more reason for drivers to grow up and act responsibly. Over the past three weeks, I have driven past more than 15 collisions (including two serious ones) all of which could probably have been avoided had the drivers simply obeyed the laws of the road. When will Malta’s motorists cease to behave like hooligans?