Maltese bus drivers and their antics ... meehhh

Today I was rambling away on LaDelirante's blog about the pros and cons of the Maltese public transport system, and as they say "il (buon)giorno si vede dal mattino".

In the evening I went off to Valletta for a talk about "Subterranean Valletta", obviously by bus. When we reach Blata l-Bajda, my bus meets another bus, and you can immediately see the glint in the drivers' eyes as they hit the accelerator pedal to see who will outrun who. Who cares about the passengers (a couple of whom were elderly women, and another three were foreigners, leaving me and only another Maltese girl)?!! We are jostled around due to all the humps and bumps and then we go roooooooouuunnddd then beeeeeeeeend and *CLINK* [insert sound of glass breaking here][insert incredible amount of swear words here] [and multiply it by 5,000]. I turn around and see that one of the side windows on the rear is broken - one of the side mirrors of the other bus had hit the glass while they were in their mad dash and my driver decided that he should simply overtake the other guy so that he would stop him from "winning".

The three foreign ladies who were sitting in the back seat and the other Maltese girl you was seated a couple of seats in front of them didn't even realise what had happened, and they've only asked what was going on when the driver slammed his brakes and stormed out of the bus amidst a string of curses. I joined the old ladies in muttering and grumbling at how irresponsible bus drivers are. Thankfully no one was sitting on the right hand side of the bus, as otherwise they would have been hurt. Thankfully we stopped next to the MUSEUM church in Blata l-Bajda and the next bus passed by immediately so we weren't held up.

But I felt ashamed. Even if I wasn't late, and even if there weren't any foreigners on the bus I would have still felt disgusted by the sheer irresponsibility of both drivers. But I felt appalled and ashamed because of what those three lovely British ladies might have been thinking. Thankfully they actually laughed at the whole situation ... but what if there was a kid sitting there? Everyone knows how kids like to stick their faces to the windows of a bus. No one would have actually laughed or taken this lightly if someone got hurt.

There are many what ifs and I don't feel like dwelling on this incident but I have to say that I do feel sad by the whole situation. How does it make YOU feel?