Abela blames traffic from collisions on delayed magisterial inquiries

Labour leader Robert Abela on Wednesday blamed recent traffic problems on delays in onsite investigations by magistrates following crashes.  

Abela was asked about the island’s traffic woes after motorists were left fuming when a collision earlier in the day saw part of Regional Road closed off.

He said he could not comment on Wednesday's gridlock, as he did not know what had caused the traffic, but that other, similar incidents in recent weeks were caused by judicial delays. 

“In the two previous incidents we had a situation of incidents happening at a particular time and the magisterial inquiries starting hours later,” he said.  

He said he was in not criticising magistrates or their decisions to appoint experts for inquiries - that, he said, is in their discretion. 

“But let’s understand the requirements of the public. While these inquiries and their findings need to happen, we cannot allow a number of hours to pass for them to get underway,” Abela told reporters.   

On March 14, debris from a major crash on the Regional Road took hours to be removed, causing long traffic tailbacks on the key thoroughfare. 

At the time sources had told Times of Malta that the delays were also...