I wasn’t in Malta for the Pope’s visit, maintaining a tradition into a hat-trick (though this time I had to be here for a couple of hours) so I’ve no idea what traffic commotion was created by the transit of HH through the highways and byways of the Republic.

I’ve no doubt that there was some chaos, as usual, and my moral conviction is strengthened by the apparent mayhem that was kicked up when that twit thought his crane would duck and it didn’t.

I say “apparent” because I wasn’t in Malta that day either, having repaired up North a couple of days earlier than usual.

Work brought me up here, promise, why else would I prefer to spend my time in Gozo than at the office? The result was, in traffic terms, that my trials and tribulations on that front were restricted to wondering whether we would be able to park within twenty metres or thirty metres of DVenue when we went there for a pretty decent rock’n’roll evening on Friday. I’ve learnt to avoid the Tigrija (or whatever it’s called) at certain times, so I’m pretty cool about driving again and I can park close to home, too.

Getting back to that silly man and his close encounter of the ‘’oops’’ kind with the bridge, if the Facebook statuses and the length of the comments section are to be taken at face value, the whole thing was on a par with the disruption caused when the Icelanders misread the demand from Europe and sent ash instead of cash.

My first reaction was pretty much the same as when I’m sitting in traffic watching morons of the (least) finest kind cut in after having breezed up the inner lane of the Mriehel Bypass, for all the world as if the rest of us were stuck in the outer lane for our health.

In other words, “don’t these idiots (I’m being charitable) know how to drive?”

At first, I directed less than charitable thoughts such as these towards the people who were whinging that their trip home on Friday had taken so long because, frankly, they could easily have taken detours and driven around the blockage.

Except for the poor sods just behind the crane when its idiot driver employed the famous last words “tghid, nghaddi?”, who didn’t have much choice, everyone else could have taken a left and gone through Marsa or a right and gone through Sa Maison.

But then, on mature reflection brought on by an excellent bottle of La Celia and a couple of limuncell, I concluded that perhaps it wasn’t the fault of the people in their cars. Well, not completely, anyway, though I know many of them whose knowledge of the roads around them is so sparse that they probably had no idea that taking a left on the old Cross Road would take them past the carnage.

No, probably the fault for the traffic stroke (as in blocked artery, get it?) lies squarely at the door of the various authorities who are supposed to make our lives on the road less fraught. I don’t mean the people who decided to close Aldo Moro Road to test the bridge, safety comes first and no question and however long it takes, it takes.

But can you put your hand on your heart and say that the cops and the wannabe-cops give a tinker’s cuss about what happens on the road? Think, for instance, about a normal day’s rush-hour, for all that our rush-hours don’t even begin to compare with any other European city.

Do you see a single solitary copper anywhere, making sure that there aren’t issues to be dealt with? Not a hope in hell, in the morning it’s too early for them, except for the ones who need to get to Court and they can just flip the switch and do a spot of blue’n’tuning, as do the guys taking the lads from the Corradino Hilton for a spot of fun with justice. As for the afternoons, well, it’s shift-change, so forget seeing a cop anywhere.

Do you see any wardens directing traffic, as opposed to trying to maximise income for their local council? Nope, and although there is something of a consensus that you’d rather not have anyone in a uniform directing traffic, unless it’s a Scout with a brain, this is symptomatic of the wider malaise, one that is prevalent in officialdom, especially local council officialdom, country-wide.

Not to put too fine a point on it, no-one gives a stuff about cars and their drivers: the local councils just stick one-way signs everywhere without a thought as to whether this affects traffic (you’d think most local councillors don’t actually have a car or know how to drive it in the real sense of the word) and as to parking, all that interests them is fining people for doing that little thing, at least if the attitude of my useless Malta local councils (Lija and Balzan) is anything to go by, and I’m pretty sure it is.

So there you have it, a typical petrol-head rant, brought on by my conviction that a) other drivers are twerps and b) the authorities are bigger twerps. Hey, it’s not my fault that the politicians are laying low and not giving me anything else to write about.