If you have the impression that the Maltese are undisciplined drivers – and parkers – you may be right: nearly six of every 10 drivers got at least one contravention in 2017.

The National Statistics Office published a comprehensive analysis of transport statistics last week showing that out of around 254,000 licensed drivers, 141,911 were fined in 2017.

Some are serial offenders while a third of them – 85,834 – only got one contravention that year. The rest were fined on multiple occasions, with 1,675 people getting fined over 10 times.

Parking tickets make up the bulk of the contraventions, with the majority – 90 per cent of the 93,626 – issued by wardens. The police issued 9,583 fines for illegal parking, with Transport Malta dishing out just over 100.

Overall, this means an average of 256 tickets were given out every day.

Campaigns to deter use of mobile phones while driving seem to be paying off. The fine was raised to €100 in 2017 and the number of infringements dropped from 11,285 in 2016 to 9,945 that year.

The wardens also dished out the bulk of tickets for contravening carriageway markings – 61,244 out of 73,908.

Speed cameras have also been having an impact as a deterrent – quite apart from the penalty points added at the end of 2017. Since then, drivers may lose their licence for two months if they accumulate 12 penalty points over a period of 12 months.

In 2016, there were 73,241 speeding tickets sent out, increasing to 78,382 in 2017. However, these went down to 56,039 according to information for last year obtained from a parliamentary question.

The speed camera in Attard caught the most ‘speedsters’ – 12,286 in 2017 – with the Siġġiewi bypass nabbing 9,055 and the Birkirkara bypass in third place with 7,694.