Editorial: The elusive road safety bureau

The setting up of a transport safety investigation commission had been announced in a white paper almost three years ago. What the government has been able to deliver so far is a roads policing unit within the police force. The two structures are unlikely to be able to serve the same purpose.

The December 2022 white paper had been launched as part of the government’s ‘Vision Zero’ concept, the goal being to cut road deaths to zero by 2050. The idea projected then was to enhance transport safety “by guaranteeing that safety investigations will neither apportion blame nor determine civil/criminal liabilities; this will be conducive towards understanding why things went wrong with the aim of learning and disseminating these lessons to the public and to policymakers”.

The roads policing unit, announced a few days ago, appears to have a different function. An official statement spoke of traffic regulations enforcement, a more efficient investigation of serious accidents, ensuring roads can be reopened to traffic quicker after an accident and submitting evidence in court.

This set-up had first been mentioned in Budget 2024 when the idea of the road safety investigation bureau had already been mooted. The government had said the necessary legislative changes spawning the bureau would be presented to parliament by end July 2023, “with the aim of the changes coming into force by the end of December 2023”.

It is known that the judiciary was hesitant in sharing the findings of magisterial inquiries into serious road accidents, therefore slowing down the plans.

The judicial and police authorities conduct their own investigations/inquiries when serious accidents happen to determine potential criminal responsibility or civil liability.

Independent civilian bodies, on the other hand, go into the technical and systemic causes of an accident, the primary aim being to make recommendations that can prevent recurrence.

Malta, we had been told in the white paper, had an opportunity to rethink transport safety “because established safety investigation philosophy from the aviation and maritime domains may be applied to this domain, considering in particular that road transport systems are also characterised by complex socio-technical systems”.

The plan, at least then, was to consolidate what had already been achieved on a national level in air and maritime safety investigations and introduce the practice in land transport, especially in case of fatalities.

The independent marine safety investigation unit investigates sea accidents. It is tasked with contributing to maritime safety through investigations, safety studies and academic research. Likewise, the bureau of air accidents investigation is expected to issue safety recommendations that help prevent future accidents.

One can hardly be blamed for wondering why the road safety bureau seems to have hit a brick wall, if these two units could be set up and work.

For some reason, the government has decided to proceed with the setting up of the police specialised roads unit but the safety investigation bureau project remains nebulous. Perhaps the transport and home affairs ministers can take society in their confidence and put all cards on the table.

As things stand, it seems the national paradigm shift in transportation safety from “safety being a priority” to “safety becoming a national value”, willed by the government three years ago, is still a long way away.

This state of affairs vindicates what Doctors for Road Safety remarked a few days before last Christmas that such lethargy “is symptomatic of road safety not being given its urgent due priority by policymakers”.