A year ago, the EU’s Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 was launched with the ambition to meet the UN’s ‘Vision Zero’ target, that is having zero road fatalities by 2050.
This appears very ambitious considering that over 25,000 deaths and 135,000 serious injuries occur on European roads every year, yet, it is admirable as it has clear targets. The European Commissioner for Transport, Adina-Ioana Valean had also announced another target: halving the number of road deaths by 2030.
On December 8 of this year, I attended the EU Road Safety Results Conference where the latest updates on the progress achieved in reaching the above targets were reported on. This provided an opportunity to witness various examples of how different EU countries were tackling the issue and one could not help but compare to what is happening in Malta.
Eighteen EU member states, including Malta, participated in the EU’s ‘Baseline’ project which set down eight Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the progress achieved in reducing the road deaths and fatalities.
The results are to be published in early 2023 and it would be very interesting to see how Malta has fared compared to other countries, after all, as the adage goes ‘you cannot change what you cannot measure’.
Indeed, the importance of collecting relevant data was highlighted by Brigadier Jeffrey Curmi, Transport Malta’s CEO during the press conference given by Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia announcing a plan of action to tackle road safety.
We publicly restate our openness to assist the authorities in any way we can- Adrian Galea
As the association representing insurers in Malta, we welcome the announcement of this plan and fully support the measures proposed. We will certainly be participating in the public consultation process regarding the setting up of a transport safety commission to investigate the causes of fatal road accidents and see its foundation as a very important development.
We are, however, cautious in our optimism since we have been putting across our message that a lot more needs to be done on road safety for many years, yet, we cannot really see evidence of any substantial improvement.
We will therefore be looking at the results achieved by this new campaign very closely and hope that the relevant data is indeed collected and that the results relating to the specified KPIs set down are regularly published.
The strategy has some commendable and ambitious objectives one of which being ‘eliminating’ drink- and drug driving. This is very welcome news to us as this a topic which we have spoken about innumerable times. Our member insurers frequently report that in most of the serious accidents they handle there is a strong suspicion that the responsible driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
However, it is very rare indeed that alcohol tests are carried out and we know of no cases where a drug test was taken. This, coupled with the lack of random roadside alcohol tests (the police are not equipped to carry out roadside drug tests as yet), have created a culture of indifference among drivers to this risk.
How many drivers are concerned about drinking more than a glass of beer or wine before driving? We know the answer, very few, if any. Therefore, unless laws are enforced, and seen to be enforced, this attitude will not change and we strongly believe that this is the key to tackling road safety successfully.
The overriding view of the public, like ours, is that there is little or no enforcement of traffic rules and this is evidenced by the many pointed readers’ comments on news sites and on social media after some accident is reported or following some post showing another example of driving abuses. Community officers seemed to be focused only on issuing parking tickets while ignoring double-parked vehicles in busy areas.
We hardly see any traffic police on our roads anymore except when they are escorting some dignitary and Transport Malta’s enforcement officers appear to spend most of their time in pairs at roundabouts directing heavy traffic. Just observing the constant abuses of eKickScooter users, which are too numerous to mention, is yet another example of the lack of serious enforcement on our roads.
We believe that we have done our part to assist the authorities in combatting drink and drug driving. Not only did we donate a number of breathalyser kits which are the only ones still being used today but we have also appointed legal experts to draft out amendments in the law so that the police are in a better position to enforce drink/drug driving rules.
These were passed on to the authorities years ago and are probably sadly gathering dust on some shelf. This is aside from our participation in the Road Safety Council and our open invitation to share accident data with the relevant authorities to help, for instance, to identify accident black spots.
Our hope is that, finally, fine words are turned into action and that we start seeing results that confirm that we are indeed tackling this long-standing problem in an effective and durable manner.
We publicly restate our openness to assist the authorities in any way we can so that, ultimately, fewer people lose their lives or end up maimed on our roads and continue to believe that, with the right level of determination, we, as a nation, can still be successful in improving safety on our roads.
Adrian Galea is director general of the Malta Insurance Association.