I couldn’t help but smile as I read Mark Anthony Falzon’s article ‘Musings on the traffic’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, October 4). It was a comical approach to the nightmare traffic situation on our island – terrible roads, bad drivers, poor public transport and awful road and traffic management.

I’ve been wanting to write a bit about this for a while and now I feel is the best time. I live in Sliema and leaving or coming home at any time is a nightmare for most and parking is a bigger nightmare.

However, I think some things can be rectified by simply changing the obvious. There are at least four sets of pelican lights, allowing pedestrians to cross the road on the stretch from the Ferries up to Gżira. They are so close together you can actually see the next set. Why is this? I’m sure we don’t need more than two.

In addition, there are a similar number of zebra crossings. All this holds up traffic as people are pressing the lights all the time. I also think it is about time parking meters are installed. This will definitely encourage car pooling and make people free up parking spaces sooner.

Education is also paramount. One can see people parked in a regular carriageway simply to buy pastizzi or lottery tickets. The typical Maltese driver thinks that parking in a carriageway is acceptable as long as you switch on the hazard lights – and, indeed, I suspect most wardens seem to accept this. All this increases chaos and can easily be changed if we really wanted to.

But it seems we don’t.