Institutional secrecy about the cause of traffic accidents may be on its way out, with a new plan to tackle road safety set to include new forms of investigations into accident causes.

Presently, magisterial inquiries that investigate fatal or serious traffic accidents are kept under lock and key and their findings not revealed, preventing policymakers from tapping the data that could help improve policy.  

However, a new “comprehensive” strategy, set to be officially announced in the coming days will include some form of traffic accident investigation that can eventually be used to make roads safer, transport minister Aaron Farrugia said on Friday. 

“The new comprehensive plan will include several strategies and policy revision and also new initiatives including one about investigations,” he said. 

“At present, there exists a system of axillary investigation for maritime and aviation accidents, in the coming days I will be able to go into detail about what will happen on roads,” he said. 

Problems with the current, secretive system of inquiries into road deaths were flagged last month by the grieving partner of a woman killed in a motorcycle crash. 

Marie Claire Lombardi died after she skidded on a patch of suspected olives that spilled out onto a Rabat roundabout. Her husband Aldo noted that nobody would have known what caused the crash, had he not found out and gone public with the information.

"We need to know what happened so we can learn from it,” he said of such cases.  

Cycling tracks to start being built next year

Fielding questions on Friday, the transport minister added that the plan will take pedestrian and cyclist safety into account, adding that a proposed plan for a €35 million bicycle network will start being implemented in January.  

A total of 26 people have died this year on Maltese roads, making it the deadliest year for road deaths. Of those fatalities, 14 were pedestrians and eight were motorcyclists. One victim was driving a serkin, [horse-drawn carriage].   

The record figure has led to the announcement of a new road safety plan, ahead of schedule. The current ten-year road safety strategy is set to expire in 2024.  

Farrugia confirmed this week that a stricter points system and a radical increase in traffic violation fines be part of the new plan.  

Road safety experts have welcomed the news but added that more enforcement, harsher criminal court sentences, drug testing, and better road design are needed to make roads safer.