Speed cameras are not the most popular equipment around. News that the transport authority intends to install another eight of them about the island was greeted with widespread boos. Just goes to show some of the extent to which we Maltese find basic discipline repulsive.
Speed limits are set for the good of society. For drivers, passengers, other drivers and passengers and for pedestrians. They are related to the likelihood of accidents at above a certain speed in particular roads, and to the calculation of harm (humans) or damage (vehicles, etc) on impact.
In Malta the speed has to be less than, say, in Italy or the UK, given the length and form of our roads. Many drivers do not believe that, or could not care less. Over speeding in Malta relative to the roads used is common. That sets a high level of hazard to life, limb, vehicle and building.
We over speed not only on bypasses, but also on any stretch of distance within urban areas, including village and town cores. Signals setting speed limits are there to be ignored with dangerous regularity.
If limit signals have little effect on drivers, speed cameras do not have much more. One does tend to slow down when approaching one of them, up to passing it - and then the throttle is opened up as furiously as can be.
Off course, I generalise. But the exceptions to my generalisations are not that many. Some drivers take as an affront any suggestion that they have to limit themselves, or pay a penalty. The odd local council (Attard) has also been known to insist that existing speed cameras be blinded.
The attitude prevails in the media too. One or two newspapers seem to have a policy to denigrate the use of speed cameras. All of this stems from a misplaced bravado. From a silly notion that over speeding, no matter how dangerous it might be to self and others, is exhilarating.
Instead of having a serious public discussion about where speed cameras are falling short of their objective, on how to make their location more efficient thereby to increase safety on the roads, we work ourselves up in a lather of indignation about their existence. They are seen purely as a means whereby local and central authorities raise revenue. Visible though they are, and nowadays signposted to an almost boring degree, they are seen as being no different from wardens hiding to nab unsuspecting drivers breaking the regulations.
All this is a function of a widespread lack of road education and a broader failure as regards civility towards others, even if we do not give a hang about our own safety. I see it in a completely different light, both as a driver and a pedestrian.
Speed cameras are there for our own good. When we drive too fast we endanger ourselves as well as others. They are there for the good of pedestrians, who have a right not be endangered by reckless drivers.
The sooner the transport authority installs more judiciously placed speed cameras, the better. But doing that is not enough. There has to be an ongoing education campaign on road safety. It has to start in our schools. To cover those who run driving schools. It has to be drummed into parent-drivers who give bad examples to their children. It has to reach all those who are lucky enough to have a driver but who rarely tell him to reduce speed to fall within the speed limit on the road they are passing through.
Wardens and policemen have to be used to calm traffic, to caution drivers caught over speeding the first time, but to register that caution so that it may be used against repeaters. As for those of us who drive we should do our best to make speed cameras and traffic guardians obsolete by showing due sense on the road. We should demonstrate we do not need to be protected from ourselves.
We should speed into sense and sensibility, not away from them.