The Insurance Association Malta is calling for tougher enforcement and greater transparency over roadside drug and alcohol testing following a series of serious traffic accidents and court cases involving dangerous and unlicensed driving in recent months.

The IAM is also calling for the reactivation of the Road Safety Council, which has remained dormant for the past seven months after its chairperson resigned citing personal commitments.

The IAM insisted that ”set up to advise on measures to improve road safety, while promoting awareness, best practice and policy recommendations, the Council cannot function until the Sustainable Mobility Ministry nominates a new chair.”

“At a time when road safety is once again in the spotlight, the country should not be without a functioning body specifically tasked with advising on these issues,” IAM said in a statement.

The Association said the Council’s continued absence was all the more concerning at a time when questions were also being raised over the enforcement of measures introduced to make Malta’s roads safer.

Six months after amendments allowing random roadside drug testing came into force, IAM is urging the police to publish how many such tests have been carried out, how many returned positive results and how many led to prosecutions.

It noted that when the law was introduced at the end of March, the police had said four drivers had tested positive in the first days, including one during routine road checks, and had committed to carrying out such tests “regularly” in the coming days and weeks.

IAM said the time had now come for the results of that enforcement to be made public and reported regularly, allowing trends to be monitored and the impact of the new measures to be assessed.

“We need to know how many motorists are being tested to establish whether there is any evidence that behaviour is changing,” it said.

The Association said the need for effective enforcement was further underlined by the recent run of serious motorcycle accidents.

It highlighted that at least 15 serious motorcycle accidents have been reported over the past months, while the latest National Statistics Office figures show motorcyclists accounted for 40.7% of all road casualties between April and June, despite representing a fraction of vehicles on Maltese roads.

IAM said that ”as the government continued to promote alternative forms of transport, particularly among younger people, road safety policy must keep pace.”

“This means better education on safe riding, including overtaking, greater awareness among all road users of how to share the road safely with motorcyclists, cyclists and scooter users, and better road design, with segregation wherever this is feasible,” it said.

It added that reports of speeding and aggressive driving continued to surface, while recent court cases involving motorists allegedly driving without a valid licence or insurance further highlight the need for consistent enforcement.

It called on the authorities to consider greater use of technology such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition, both at fixed points and in police vehicles, to help detect uninsured vehicles and other offences more quickly.

IAM said the answer was not necessarily about introducing more laws, but ensuring that existing laws were enforced consistently and that the public could see what that enforcement was achieving.

“Road safety cannot be measured by legislation alone. It is enforcement that changes behaviour, and transparency that allows us to judge whether that enforcement is working. Every life saved on our roads is a major success.”

Photo: IAM/Shutterstock

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