Some days before the March opinion page was published, the third of my trio of damaged hills, Bidnija, was worked over. Bidnija Bridge is now less dangerous and some patches have been placed on the actual hill. However, a minor side-track is required as this hill, along with hundreds of other roads, has ill-placed manhole covers that can catch out the unwary, and in some instances can actually break expensive low-profile tyres.

Is it beyond the understanding and capability of the supervisors at Transport Malta to ensure that every cover placed on our roads is flat with the surface of the road and neither rises above nor sinks below the true course of the wearing coat?

Fifteen years ago when I was in my prime in the Traffic Control Board, short shrift was given to anyone who dared own a car with these diabolical low-profile tyres. Tyres often so low that they appeared to be almost flat, and of course, broke by the hundred on our totally unsympathetic road inconsistencies.

March forward 15 years and roads are still inadequately finished for motorists, many of whom have absolutely no option but to continue using low-profile tyres because they are the only ones recommended and supplied for literally dozens of very nice, sometimes very expensive vehicles. But, and this is the main point, more and more manufacturers are promoting 40/45 profiles on mundane family cars, and still our blinkered teams working feverishly on road construction and repair absolutely refuse to acknowledge that motorists often don’t have a choice of tyre once they have purchased the car.

Their arguments about buying suitable cars for our roads simply don’t hold credence, or we would all own SUVs, MPVs or anything else with large full-profile tyres. The wrath of a few motoring hacks like yours truly would then become common, for I sincerely think we already have far too many ‘combat’ vehicles able to happily cruise at 160 km/h, scaring the devil out of old codgers in small cars.

Since I began a complaining campaign about high-speed bendy buses, more and more people have agreed that we may just possibly make a case for the original 16 bendy buses on express routes that largely bypassed towns and villages, but no-one apart from Arriva management [for obvious commercial reasons] and lap dogs employed by Transport Malta can agree that a great mass of impossible-to-overtake, 18-metre behemoths can do anything but frustrate the 300,000 normal motorists who are constantly confronted or back-visioned by these monster death traps.

In 1993, Major Peter Ripard, the then general manager of the Transport Authority, wrote the definitive thesis on the various sizes of buses that we needed and still need [from a citizen motorists’ viewpoint] and not, it must be clearly stated, from an Arriva management viewpoint. He stated, quite correctly, that we needed a proper mix and match, with many, presumably 23-seaters, to handle the various town and village centres. I have a feeling that modern nine-metre buses were the all-important ones, as the 12-metre jobs so popular today are, in fact, too wide for our local conditions.

Last month, I published a photograph of one of the ‘Arriva’ arrival and departure holes at a bus stop in Qawra Road, St Paul’s Bay. The whole of Qawra road from Ta’ Fra Ben to the junction with Pioneer Road needs to have the rapidly sinking trenches adequately reworked and resurfaced so as to support the maximum axle weight allowed in Malta, plus at least 855kg to cater for those that break the law with impunity with axles supporting a road-damaging load.

I actually have the name and mobile number of the person at Transport Malta who should be geared up and waiting for the public to report any trenches that have been incorrectly filled.

I would also remind Naxxar council and any other interested bodies that the road markings in September 21st Avenue at the junction with Labour Avenue must either be reworked so that Arriva can turn right legally, without going four metres onto the wrong side of the road to make the turn. Or all buses and heavy vehicles must be made to turn left, go round the Church and come straight down Labour Avenue.

This month I highlight a photo of the SLOW sign painted in the middle of a road [Triq il-Qala in St Paul’s Bay]. I would remind mayor Mario Salerno, who takes an interest in traffic management, that this painting tells all experienced drivers, local and foreign that they are in a one-way street. This is wrong. It’s a normal two-way street, and must have signs painted correctly on the driver’s side of the road, not in the middle.