Eight seconds after traffic lights turn red motorists are still driving on, a monitoring exercise by Transport Malta shows.
Then, when the lights turn green, motorists stall for five seconds before moving on.
These details were given yesterday by Pierre Vella, a road safety consultant with Transport Malta, at the unveiling of the National Road Safety Council, which is tasked with raising awareness on road safety.
“It seems we literally see red when we come to the red light but then cars don’t move when the light turns green because drivers are too busy fiddling about with their mobile phones,” Mr Vella said.
The council will be pressing for the stronger enforcement of road safety rules and clamping down on mobile phone texting, lack of indicator use, double parking and road obstruction.
The message was clear: “You don’t want to listen? Then we’ll enforce the law. People need to be penalised if they are in the wrong.”
But Mr Vella insisted pedestrians should also be mindful of their surroundings. There were times when pedestrians ignored a nearby zebra crossing and chose to cross the road from another point resulting in accidents that would then be generally blamed on the motorists.
Drivers are too busy fiddling with their phones
Mr Vella stressed the importance of proper route planning and leaving on time, explaining that some routes could be longer but quicker.
Malta’s obesity problem was reflected in the way people tended to carelessly double park to buy pastizzi, he remarked.
He also noted that, on obtaining their driving licences, youths tended to drive powerful cars at high speeds.
“We need to have some sort of racing circuit or somewhere to simulate an accident so that people can learn how to manage their cars in those critical moments,” he said. This also applied to middle-aged people, who were now driving more powerful cars than they did when they first started driving, he added.
With about 300,000 cars on the roads, Mr Vella urged drivers and pedestrians to join the effort for better behaviour on the roads.
Transport Minister Joe Mizzi said each loss of life was a matter of national policy to the government and highlighted the urgent need to implement all necessary measures to address the fundamental cause of traffic accidents.
“As a regular road user, it is very sad to see people driving at high speeds or texting on their phones, to see drivers completely ignoring directions and trying to go the wrong way just to save a few extra minutes of driving, risking a lot of lives,” Mr Mizzi said.
He said drink driving at night was a more serious problem than people believed.
“The amount of damage found after the weekend on our roads is the biggest proof of that.”
Serious road accidents*
2010 - 178
2011 - 122
2012 - 137
2013 - 113
2014 - 80
2015 - 25
* Accidents CPD responded to
Main accident causes
• Influence of alcohol
• Use of mobile phones while driving
• Excessive speed or overconfidence
• Road conditions
Source: CPD
‘Priority is to save lives not cut open vehicles’
The Civil Protection Department will build its largest fire station in Santa Venera because heavy traffic adversely affected their response time, according to a senior manager.
“Our golden rule is that, within one hour from the accident time, the victim must be in hospital,” CPD senior operations manager Peter Paul Coleiro said.
But increased road congestion was causing problems to stick to the golden rule, he said, without elaborating.
Mr Coleiro noted that the situation was often exacerbated when drivers paid more attention to what was going on at the scene of an accident rather than keeping their eyes on the road ahead.
“I’d also like to clarify that it is not our hobby to cut cars up. We’ve had victims telling us not to cut the metal open.
“Our priority is saving lives; we cut cars open when we need to extricate victims or to enable the medical response team to work.”
Some drivers are taking up to five seconds to move off after the lights turn green, while texting at the wheel (left) is a menace. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli