A unique Maltese comment is that islanders drive in the shade, but these days it is probably the cavernous potholes forcing motorists to swerve madly.
Winter’s consistent rains have dented the already poorly maintained road network exposing holes and shoddy road-building.
Data tabled in Parliament recently showed that between 2007 and last year 548 motorists filed claims over the poor state of the roads totalling nearly €26,000 in compensation.
Potholes get drivers hot under the collar and as Times Talk prepares to present Tuesday’s programme on this inconvenient reality, many took to timesofmalta.com to voice their exasperation.
Comments ranged from road repairs being a “complete joke”, “lack of planning”, “horrible repairs” by contractors, “atrocious workmanship” and the “inferior material” used.
Chamber of Architects president Chris Mintoff said the island required a desperate rethink of the roads’ infrastructure, an improved transport network and a national strategy to ensure roads lasted for at least 25 years.
“The island is one city and the number of cars increases every year; most of our roads, especially those built in the 1980s and 1990s are not designed to handle today’s volume of traffic,” Mr Mintoff said.
Most of our roads are not designed to handle today’s volume of traffic
Architects explained that one of the major reasons was bad construction from the bottom up, followed by roads’ inability to handle the load of vehicles.
Bad workmanship means that apart from avoiding potholes, motorists have to contend with tarmac that bubbles up or creates a bumpy wave because there was too much asphalt in the mix. The basis of good road building rests on good designs and planning, but more often than not the roads were old and since rebuilding them from scratch would entail exorbitant amounts of money and road closures, they were simply resurfaced.
Architects also pointed out that the cheapest material was used to fill potholes.
This was often emulsion bitumen, which was water-based and doomed to fail after the first few rainfalls.
Pre-packed material from abroad could resolve this problem, but it cost six times as much.
And even if in the short term, using the cheap material meant costs were kept low, it turned out to be a costlier exercise in the long run because it had to be repeated after every rainfall.
Ta’ Xbiex council mayor Max Zammit is planning on changing things around in his locality and said he had embarked on discussions with Bonnici Bros to find a more cost-effective, safer way of dealing with potholes.
“We’re exploring the innovative products available to see how we can step up road safety and ensure road sustainability. In the long run we’re saving on labour and human costs, time and energy,” Mr Zammit said.