Editorial

Malta's driving test, for long held to be a music hall joke, has at last been brought into line with EU directives. The result has been a much tougher examination. How much stiffer this version is has been borne out by the fact that the pass rate of candidates has plunged from 98 per cent to 42.5 per cent. This, in itself, is both very significant and telling.

Anybody who made use of a car could tell the sort of driving standards that prevailed, and still do. He could see at very close quarters that on top of the general discourtesy shown by drivers of all ages and of every type of vehicle, there was not a rule in the book that was not being transgressed every minute of the day or night. The miracle was that for all the accidents that did take place so few were fatal.

The question is whether the new driving test will breed a safer kind of driver. Doubts no doubt remain. For the problem is dual: knowledge of what is right and what is wrong once we get behind the wheel and clear proof that once many of us settled in behind a steering wheel, little notice was taken of what was right or wrong.

It is assumed that everybody knows what a red traffic light is signalling. This assumption is wrong. It is green for some and this not because they are colour blind. They inhabit an irritating subculture that seems to say they are nerds if they were to abide by rules.

Everybody, for another example, has some idea that traffic on the roundabout has right of way but there are many who disbelieve this and act according to their disbelief.

Everybody knows the speed limit in built-up areas but there is nobody who has not seen drivers belting down narrow streets, sounding their horns to warn pedestrians that a lout is on the loose.

So, yes, it is good that collecting a driving licence has been made tougher but this alone provides no guarantee that roads will be safer. The prospect remains that once the test is passed, the new breed of drivers may not resist an inclination to discourtesy towards other road users.

Point out to any of these that s/he has done something wrong, broken the law, and a torrent of abusive language, if not worse, is sure to follow, just as night follows day.

Courtesy, education and law enforcement continue to leave a lot to be desired.

Courtesy on the road has little to do with success in passing a driving test when the driver knows s/he has to be on his/her best behaviour. It comes with education, with being able to overcome the temptation that assails so many drivers to behave like deranged beings in charge of what is a lethal weapon. And if education there is none, then it has to be strict law enforcement backed by harsh sentencing for dangerous or irresponsible driving that must create a culture of safe driving.

Here is where the police and the so-called Malta Transport Authority (ADT) come in. The long arm of the law has become shorter and shorter as far as road discipline goes. Motorcycle officers and mounted police to exercise discipline on the roads are conspicuous by their absence.

As for the ADT... well many have still to understand what this body is in fact doing and whether it is good value for money.