Doctors for Road Safety (D4RS) on Friday expressed sadness and disappointment at the rising number of fatal and serious accidents on Maltese roads, as Malta registered its ninth victim of 2022.

A man was killed in a crash between a horse sulky and a car in Rabat on Friday morning.

This, it said, is equivalent to the total number of road victims for the whole of 2021.

“Civil society cannot keep on shifting responsibility solely onto accidents or misfortune. D4RS reiterate that consistent and repeated educational campaigns targeting all road users need to be ever-present, while law enforcement clearly needs to be significantly stepped up.

“We note that road safety falls under the responsibility of many different departments and institutions which one expects must make coordination and effectiveness of this important task highly challenging,” the doctors said.

They said that in this time of political pledges, they along with civil society, expect political representatives to come forward with significant and concrete proposals to address “this alarming situation”.

An overarching authority dedicated solely towards road safety that regulates and coordinates these various stakeholders might be a good start, the doctors said.