Valletta trap for concept trucking

Grandmaster La Valette didn't provide for it, and the German driver wasn't aware of it.

The result: a traffic snarl in Old Mint Street, Valletta, which took hours to unravel.

It all happened when the German driver somehow made his way in his 15-metre-long trailer to Old Mint Street, designed by the knights to handle nothing more cumbersome than horses.

If horses make their way there these days, they are not wanted - the mess they leave when nature calls is not what the residents want.

But then, neither do the residents want the traffic fumes belching in through their windows. And yesterday was a day of days for that.

The traffic which found itself in Old Mint Street had to be diverted for several hours yesterday - from 8.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. - after it dawned on the German that he could not manoeuvre his juggernaut round the tight corners the knights had built.

There was one solution to the situation: White Brothers Ltd, haulers and port operators.

Their staff went on site to see how they could release the trailer.

They first removed the tractor unit - the part containing the cabin and engine - and replaced it with another motorised unit.

And facing the trailer - therefore not seeing anything but - the driver, following the instructions of a fellow employee looking out the window, drove the trailer back up the steep, stepped hill it had come down so easily in the morning.

The episode owes its origin to the trailer's German driver unwittingly mistaking Old Mint Street for the Valletta ring road which was to take him to his destination - the Mediterranean Conference Centre.

The driver said he was delivering "decorations" to the MCC.

An Old Mint Street resident said he could not believe how such a long, heavy vehicle was allowed to enter Valletta via Castille Place, where there are police stationed round the clock.

But the police would not be aware of the destination of such vehicles.

"There are no directional signs at Castille to direct drivers to the centre of the city or to indicate how to leave Valletta. Whoever directed the driver to his destination could at least have explained the route or supplied him with a map.

"The trailers' contents were unloaded to make it lighter so that it could be pushed back up the street, an operation that took a couple of hours. There was a similar incident two years ago," the resident said.

Mario Ciantar, director of White Brothers Ltd, haulers who also supply lifting and Customs clearance services, said when contacted that the Valletta operation was something they regularly carried out when loading and unloading containers onto and off roll-on-roll-off ships.

"On ships, one has to work in extremely tight situations where space is at a premium. Our employees have to take containers up several ramps inside cargo vessels so this kind of thing is second nature to them.

"Of course, steering a trailer up a steep slope like that in Old Mint Street presented its peculiar difficulties. But it is all in a day's work," Mr Ciantar said, making light of the whole thing.