It may come as a surprise to many of the drivers of the 287,000 licensed road vehicles in Malta to learn three facts about road humps.
One: they are being phased out in the UK as rapidly as they are being phased in over here.
Two: as far as I am aware the original guidelines for road humps in Malta and Gozo are still in force. In simple terms, road humps must be 3.7 metres wide, must have provision for water to pass round them or even underneath them.
They may never be more than 10 cms high, and you are at liberty to sue the local council if they are higher and you damage your car in any way when striking them. On bus routes, they may never be higher than six centimetres, and they should never be placed on trauma routes (the roads ambulances must use to reach hospitals or clinics).
Besides, they should only be placed where it is vital that speed is kept low, outside schools, day centres for the elderly, in narrow village streets where there is no provision for pedestrians to walk on a pavement, and possibly in new housing estates after the roads have been given a coat of tarmac and thereby turned into race tracks by the local 'young Turks' and it becomes vital to safeguard youngsters, as they are likely to be found in numbers inhabiting the new housing estates.
Three: as far as we can establish, the narrow black and yellow rubber road humps that are sprouting like mushrooms in every locality may only be placed on very low speed roads and, of course, councils need written permission from the ADT before placing them.
In the interest of science, I have now established - using humps that have been placed on roads restricted to 50km/h - that my own small car rides these humps far better at 50 km/h than at five to 10 km/h, where every wheel jars over them.
My ideal hump is on the road within an 80km/h area at Mgarr where the car rides even more smoothly at 60km/h than it does at 50km/h. Readers' experiences based on this research would be welcome.
Congratulations...
To the ADT for the masterly way it has illuminated the two 'Z' bend signs on the San Pawl Tat-Targa hill, and the fine stretch of anti-skid carpeting they have laid on the downhill section of the same hill.
Perhaps, after reading this, the 'best of the best' attached to the ADT would like to go up the same hill, on a dry day, at a reasonably enthusiastic speed and see how far the car slides on the apex of the first right-hander. You know the one, it's where the 'Go Left' sign seems to have a life span of a couple of weeks at best.
It would also be a good idea to rid the hill of the mass of dried concrete that is so interestingly laid it can induce quite frightening reactions in any but high quality tyres.
The rectangular mirror helping motorists exit from Mag?tab onto the busy Salina road is still missing. Does someone need to be injured or killed before it is replaced?
The completed roundabout on the Birguma bypass will remain dangerous until proper street lights, preferably with spotlights, are in place and working to illuminate the damn thing when motorists are partly blinded by oncoming vehicles using the main beam, so that they can pick the odd structure out with their headlamps.
If, as I suspect, against advice, a roundabout is being constructed further up the bypass at the G?arg?ur turning, drivers will be stuck trying to exit from G?arg?ur during rush hours as they will, by law, have to give way to traffic on their right, and the traffic coming up the bypass at certain hours is darn nearly a solid mass.
Continuous carriageway markings
Recently I gave vent to my frustration as I regularly negotiate the road from Burmurrad to Rabat, and know that the carriageway was to have broken lines on one side of the road whenever it was safe, and this was 18 months ago.
I now cross the continuous lines on this and many other sadly painted carriageway markings whenever I deem it safe to do so (I've held a UK driving licence since 1954). I'm not proud of the fact I flout this law regularly, but I'm far more ashamed that even with a mass of architects about, no one can be bothered to rectify matters.
As the months go by, I notice more and more drivers like me (not tearaways, but middle-aged to old), driving expensive or sensible cars, making their own judgment on when it is safe to overtake.
We can't all be ignorant law-breakers, surely.
One: they are being phased out in the UK as rapidly as they are being phased in over here.
Two: as far as I am aware the original guidelines for road humps in Malta and Gozo are still in force. In simple terms, road humps must be 3.7 metres wide, must have provision for water to pass round them or even underneath them.
They may never be more than 10 cms high, and you are at liberty to sue the local council if they are higher and you damage your car in any way when striking them. On bus routes, they may never be higher than six centimetres, and they should never be placed on trauma routes (the roads ambulances must use to reach hospitals or clinics).
Besides, they should only be placed where it is vital that speed is kept low, outside schools, day centres for the elderly, in narrow village streets where there is no provision for pedestrians to walk on a pavement, and possibly in new housing estates after the roads have been given a coat of tarmac and thereby turned into race tracks by the local 'young Turks' and it becomes vital to safeguard youngsters, as they are likely to be found in numbers inhabiting the new housing estates.
Three: as far as we can establish, the narrow black and yellow rubber road humps that are sprouting like mushrooms in every locality may only be placed on very low speed roads and, of course, councils need written permission from the ADT before placing them.
In the interest of science, I have now established - using humps that have been placed on roads restricted to 50km/h - that my own small car rides these humps far better at 50 km/h than at five to 10 km/h, where every wheel jars over them.
My ideal hump is on the road within an 80km/h area at Mgarr where the car rides even more smoothly at 60km/h than it does at 50km/h. Readers' experiences based on this research would be welcome.
Congratulations...
To the ADT for the masterly way it has illuminated the two 'Z' bend signs on the San Pawl Tat-Targa hill, and the fine stretch of anti-skid carpeting they have laid on the downhill section of the same hill.
Perhaps, after reading this, the 'best of the best' attached to the ADT would like to go up the same hill, on a dry day, at a reasonably enthusiastic speed and see how far the car slides on the apex of the first right-hander. You know the one, it's where the 'Go Left' sign seems to have a life span of a couple of weeks at best.
It would also be a good idea to rid the hill of the mass of dried concrete that is so interestingly laid it can induce quite frightening reactions in any but high quality tyres.
The rectangular mirror helping motorists exit from Mag?tab onto the busy Salina road is still missing. Does someone need to be injured or killed before it is replaced?
The completed roundabout on the Birguma bypass will remain dangerous until proper street lights, preferably with spotlights, are in place and working to illuminate the damn thing when motorists are partly blinded by oncoming vehicles using the main beam, so that they can pick the odd structure out with their headlamps.
If, as I suspect, against advice, a roundabout is being constructed further up the bypass at the G?arg?ur turning, drivers will be stuck trying to exit from G?arg?ur during rush hours as they will, by law, have to give way to traffic on their right, and the traffic coming up the bypass at certain hours is darn nearly a solid mass.
Continuous carriageway markings
Recently I gave vent to my frustration as I regularly negotiate the road from Burmurrad to Rabat, and know that the carriageway was to have broken lines on one side of the road whenever it was safe, and this was 18 months ago.
I now cross the continuous lines on this and many other sadly painted carriageway markings whenever I deem it safe to do so (I've held a UK driving licence since 1954). I'm not proud of the fact I flout this law regularly, but I'm far more ashamed that even with a mass of architects about, no one can be bothered to rectify matters.
As the months go by, I notice more and more drivers like me (not tearaways, but middle-aged to old), driving expensive or sensible cars, making their own judgment on when it is safe to overtake.
We can't all be ignorant law-breakers, surely.