The charade of VRT testing must surely come to an end if only to save the blushes of the people in the higher echelons of the transport authority.
I am bound every two years to present myself at some authorised VRT garage to have my car tested before being allowed to have a road licence.
All well and good. However, how is it that when I am back on the road I encounter instances that make me flinch. For example, all types of vehicles emitting thick black smoke – many of them government-owned, vehicles with no brake lights, silencers that do not silence the noise, no rear lights, just one single front light… the list is endless.
Have all these vehicles passed the test and by what means and by whom?
Some time ago a letter over my signature had appeared in The Times wherein I drew the attention of the then Transport Minister, Ċensu Galea, who had replied to a parliamentary question that out of a total of 102,314 vehicles that were VRT tested only 7,127 had failed! I immediately replied that the figures provided to the minister must have got mixed up.
To date, these blatant failings still persist, or have gotten worse, and it seems that no one has ever raised a finger to rectify these anomalies. Why this lethargy and indifference? Why oblige us to go for such tests when the majority are breaching all the rules of this fair land.
Laws are plentiful but their enforcement leaves much to be desired.