Overcrowded

Christian Zammit is right in that alternating odd/even numbered cars will reduce traffic on the road considerably and very noticeably.

I remember when living in Germany in the 1970s, when there was a petrol shortage due to OAPEC oil embargos, that system was adopted in order to ration petrol and it worked. You’d be surprised how people can adapt to anything you can throw at them once the initial moans and protests dissipate and they get used to a system. COVID taught us to accept changes we had never dreamed of. Is using your car on alternate days a worse situation than COVID?

Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

I have an even better suggestion to that of Zammit’s which would reduce the number of cars on the road by about 80 per cent. Bring in a few motor mechanics from, say, the UK or Germany qualified to carry out VRTs on vehicles in Malta. It’s obvious that a good number of the vehicles on the road obtained their VRT as a result of the usual backhander, incompetence/corruption of the person carrying out the test or lack of proper maintenance. More than two-thirds of vehicles will disappear off the road overnight due to non-roadworthiness.

Naturally, policing it will be difficult since, according to the press, the police are as corrupt as those that police them. Virtually every HGV on the road has at least some bald tyres. When I once commented I was told:  “Yes, those are the summer tyres, as it’s dry weather. They change them in winter.”

The trouble in Malta is that no system ever works because selfishness is paramount and someone always finds a way of cheating or bending the rules to accommodate their convenience – “L-ewwel jien, imbagħad Alla sidek”.

Automatic number plate recognition in police cars will also pick up uninsured, untaxed and non-VRT vehicles, which can be taken off the road immediately.

Paul Brincau – Uxbridge, UK

Excessive road closure

We are living in Għargħur and are confronted for about the 10th time this year with a six- to seven-hour complete road closure due to construction on a private residence.

About 30 houses are totally isolated without a way to get in or out by car. We are elderly and have doctors’ appointments on many of these days, not speaking of an eventual emergency.

Are such long road closures even legal?

Stephan Schaerrer – Għargħur

Promoting inclusivity

Good Friday processions returned after three years and, as thousands flocked to several localities, we opted for the one in Naxxar.

It is commendable to witness traditional events promote inclusivity. In the one mentioned above, I observed three dark-skinned characters participating. One was an apostle, Judas, another was Barabas and the other a soldier with a whip. I am sure that no subliminal message was intended.

Louis Seychell – Siġġiewi