Transport Malta has been ordered to pay the heirs of a traffic accident victim €115,250 in compensation after being found partly responsible for an accident that killed a young man in 2011.

The Appeals Court said it was “unacceptable” that the transport watchdog did nothing to ensure there was no repeat after a woman had died in the same spot almost four years earlier.

Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi and judges Joseph R. Micallef and Tonio Mallia ruled that Transport Malta was partly responsible for the accident that claimed the life of 25-year-old Sinclair Sammut, the father of a four-year-old boy.

The court confirmed a previous court ruling that Sammut was mostly to blame for the accident as he had been driving at double the speed limit when his van hit a kerb, bounced over a small soil area at the side of the Regional Road, and plummeting almost 20 metres onto a sliproad below street level off Valley Road. He died on impact.

Crash barriers intact as they were too low to serve their purpose

The incident happened late on June 21, 2011, when Sammut was driving his Toyota Fun Cargo towards Santa Venera.

According to traffic court experts, Sammut might have slept at the wheel and accelerated at the bend, hitting the kerb and flying over the crash barriers, which remained intact as they were too low to serve their purpose.

The court said it noted that while there were crash barriers in the area where the incident occurred, the authority was aware of the fact that some years earlier, there had been another fatal accident of Alexia Maria Baldacchino.

“The court considers it a failure that the authority waited until after Sammut’s fatal accident to take more concrete action to increase safety in that area by enhancing crash barriers as much as possible, in strength and even in height.”

It added: “The authority should have taken much more drastic precautions earlier to install stronger and higher crash barriers, particularly in the aftermath of Baldacchino’s accident. Had this happened in a timely manner, the fatality of Sinclair Sammut would have probably not occurred or would have had far less serious consequences. It was pure negligence that it had done nothing to improve safety there.”

Sinclair Sammut (inset) was on his way home when the incident occurred in Regional Road. Photo: Jonathan Borg.

A court expert told the court that the car was being driven so fast that the car’s wheels only brushed the final part of the soil patch. It attributed three-quarters of the blame to the victim and the authority the remaining quarter.

In calculating the compensation, the court noted that Sammut was a cook who worked full time at a café and then had a part-time job in a Sliema hotel.

He was on his way home when the incident happened.

It upheld an argument by Transport Malta that the first court had wrongly calculated the compensation due and reduced it by just over €4,000 to €115,250.