Malta’s enforcement of drink-driving laws remains inadequate and is a likely contributor to the country’s high rate of traffic deaths, a group of doctors advocating for road safety have noted.
In a position paper released on Tuesday, Doctors for Road Safety noted several shortcomings in Malta’s enforcement of drink-driving laws, ranging from lax and sporadic enforcement to legal loopholes which allow guilty drivers to get off the hook.
The group advised the government to step up enforcement checks, allocate more resources to policing drink-driving and implement a policy whereby all drivers involved in road accidents which cause any form of injury are automatically breathalysed - already an EU-wide recommendation.
While laws have been updated to reduce blood alcohol limits permitted and introduce stricter penalties for drivers, problems remained, the lobby group said.
The group noted how Malta was one of just two EU countries to register an increase in road deaths in 2018, together with the Netherlands. By contrast, deaths on EU roads decreased by an average of 23 per cent over the past decade.
Those numbers suggest Malta is on track to spectacularly miss its 2014 stated target of halving traffic deaths by 2024.
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In its position paper, Doctors for Road Safety highlighted several concerns with Malta’s handling of drink-driving:
• Police can only breathalyse drivers when they “reasonably suspect” them of drink-driving, making it impossible for them to carry out breathalyser spot checks, as happens in many other EU countries
• Roadside breathalyser testing is infrequent and sporadic. Police only conducted 185 tests in 2018, with the number of breathalyser tests carried out every year remaining similar to 2010, when 146 tests were carried out. Furthermore, the bulk of yearly tests happen around the Christmas and New Year period.
• Legal loopholes allow skillful lawyers to get their clients off the hook for drink-driving
• Malta does not collect data on alcohol-related traffic accidents. It is one of just three countries to not do so.
• Despite the lack of data, a small-scale 2014 study of patients admitted to hospital following a traffic crash showed that 75 per cent of those who had blood alcohol levels tested were over the limit. “This implies that excess alcohol levels were present in at least 6% of individuals requiring emergency care after an RTA, a likely gross underestimate considering that in 91.7% of these cases the individual was not tested and the BAC was therefore unknown,” the group noted.
• Official pledges to strengthen random breath testing or introduce alcohol interlocks – electronic devices in cars which require drivers to pass a breathalyser test to start the vehicle – have not been implemented.
• Motorists involved in accidents which cause grievous or fatal injuries do not automatically have their blood alcohol levels tested, despite the law allowing authorities to do so.
Around 700 drink-drivers were convicted between 2009 and 2016, data released last year indicated.
Permitted blood alcohol limits were slashed in 2018 to bring them among the lowest in the EU, but insurance lobbyists have said the stricter laws have had little effect on stemming the problem. Transport Minister Ian Borg had reacted to that criticism by saying police "cannot be everywhere" at the same time.