Updated 9am, adds Transport Ministry's replies
The Road Safety Council has not met since appointing a new chairman five months ago as Malta’s insurers’ lobby says road safety has been deprioritised.
“Apart from the occasional road checks, it seems that road safety has been shelved completely by the government,” Adrian Galea, director general of Insurance Association Malta, said.
“Before, we used to see regular road checks made by Transport Malta but, in the past few weeks, they seem to have fizzled out,” he said.
The Road Safety Council’s new chairperson, Therese Bajada, was appointed at the beginning of November, taking over from Pierre Vella.
At the time, the ministry said her appointment had come at a “pivotal moment” as the government works to formally establish the council’s legal standing.
But Galea, who sits on the advisory council, which brings together road safety stakeholders, said it has not met since then.
It is understood the council previously met once every two months before Bajada’s appointment.
Galea said changes in the minister and subsequent changes at the head of Transport Malta possibly played a role in causing the delay.
Chris Bonnet was appointed transport minister instead of Aaron Farrugia in January. A month later, Mark Mallia was made Transport Malta CEO, taking over from Jonathan Borg.
The Road Safety Council “has yet to call its first meeting as a result of the protocol that is normally followed with a change in minister”, Galea added.
Frustration among insurers
“The change or rotation of people is meant to introduce new blood and an injection of new ideas but, from experience, such rotation is contributing to disruption in continuity, which compromises the timely implementation of any plans,” he said.
“This is becoming for the insurance association a frustrating issue as, more often than not, we find ourselves having to start all over again and repeat what had already been discussed months or years previously.”
The road accident agency that never was
At the same time, a road accident investigations bureau that should have been up and running in December remains pending.
When he was transport minister, Farrugia had announced the setting up of the bureau at the end of 2022 after Malta’s deadliest year on record for road deaths.
A government document on safer transport had envisaged all necessary legal changes would be presented to parliament by the end of July 2023, “with the aim of the changes coming into force by the end of December 2023”.
As it stands, road accident investigations are limited to magisterial inquiries, which are kept secret and merely seek to assign blame.
A new road safety bureau would not apportion blame but would help identify shortcomings, issues and patterns to amend road safety policy.
The road safety bureau would join the existing aviation and maritime bodies that can conduct such investigations, under the umbrella of a newly established Transport Safety Investigation Commission.
Last December, a spokesperson for the transport ministry had said the setting up of the road accident bureau was at a delicate stage “to ensure that the safety investigation process does not compromise the magisterial inquiry and vice versa”.
Sources privy to the new body’s progress said that work on setting up the road safety bureau “is far from ready”.
Asked about delays in founding the bureau, a spokesperson for the transport ministry said ta legal way forward needed to be established.
This relates to how parallel and separate investigations by the bureau and magisterial inquiry can take place.
While a magisterial inquiry seeks to give blame, the bureau's job is to help identify shortcomings, issues and patterns to amend road safety policy.
"The ongoing work is to establish a legal way forward, which will aim to ensure that while the inquiring magistrate will not interfere with the safety investigation, the latter will not impinge on the inquiry itself".