Gozo Channel has resorted to locking the doors to the ferry garages as a safety measure to prevent passengers from staying in their cars during the crossing.
All it takes is a single vehicle catching fire for anyone in the garage to suffocate from the smoke, Sammy Grech, the company’s liaison officer between the crew and shore management, said.
“Passengers do not understand, for their own sake, the danger of an emergency,” he said when asked about the measure.
Grech estimates that about 15 per cent of passengers were staying in the garage instead of going up on deck.
“We have carried out drills with the Civil Protection Department, complete with smoke-generating machines to simulate the scene and there is no way anyone in the garage would find their way out to the doors through the jampacked cars because there is zero visibility,” Grech said.
“You will not see anyone if they get trapped down there.”
Over the last 22 years, three bowsers caught fire, he said to stress the fact that such emergencies are a real possibility.
“This is for the public. The crew knows what to do,” he said.
“It is the passengers who will get stuck in there and panic,” Grech, who is responsible for making sure that safety and maintenance procedures are followed, insisted.
Rules disregarded over time
The vessels’ captain can open and close the sliding doors to the garages at any time at their own discretion. Although the measure was hardly used in the past, it was a “last resort” to get passengers to finally understand they are not allowed, by law, to stay on the enclosed vehicle decks, Grech said.
EU regulations state that passengers cannot stay in the garages of ro-ro vessels while the voyage is under way.
But this has been disregarded over time and the COVID-19 “excuse” took the flouting of the law to another level, requiring more “drastic” measures.
Last January, Gozo Channel had to engage two policemen to ensure the rule is followed. One of them was recently attacked by a passenger who did not want to cooperate.
It was also in January that Prime Minister Robert Abela urged the public to stay in their cars during the subsequent carnival weekend to limit the spread of COVID-19. However, a leading maritime lawyer urged him to reconsider his advice.
Gozo Channel ferries have now moved up from 65 to 80 per cent capacity but there is adequate space for passengers to maintain social distancing on board, Grech pointed out. There are also enough air changes.
The rules and regulations are on the company website, on notice boards in Mġarr’s marshalling area, throughout the garages and conveyed through safety announcements.
Passengers have pointed out that queues were forming by the doors as they tried to enter the garages to access their cars on arrival but Grech said this was normal when any vessel arrived in port and that “you cannot have it both ways”.