So Transport Malta is evaluating the impact of horses and heavy vehicles on rush-hour traffic, huh?

As a friend of mine aptly commented online this morning, “remind me why I employ these people, again?”

Anyone with an I.Q. higher than that of a particularly slow chicken will ‘evaluate’ said impact in five seconds flat. Or, if it’s a deeper evaluation Transport Malta is after, in the length of time it takes anyone to get to their offices in the morning.

Seeing as how I am forced to conduct this ‘evaluation’ every blessed morning, I will be kind enough to offer my conclusions. Free of charge, no less.

Horses and heavy vehicles contribute significantly to the fact that it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to get even to an adjacent town or village during rush hour. If you don’t believe me, try crossing from St Venera to the centre of Hamrun.

Horse carriages on main arteries during rush hour reduce two-lane roads into single lanes, with obvious consequences.

In the best case scenario, heavy vehicles do exactly the same.

In the worst case scenario, the latter actually spill over from their lane onto the emergency one, which means that no-one can overtake them. With the equally obvious result that cars pile up for miles behind.

In particularly narrow roads – and we have a lot of those in our villages – heavy vehicles often get stuck when someone parks slightly away from the kerb. This creates chaos no matter what time of day. Add rush hour as a variable, and you have hell on earth.

So there you have it, the evaluation Transport Malta is after. Of course, if it is simpler language that they need, I’ll spell out in unequivocal terms; horses and heavy vehicles are two of the main reasons why Malta becomes one huge traffic jam between 7.30 and 9am.

Now that the evaluation is out of the way, the question is what, exactly is Transport Malta planning to do about it?