On 2013-08-28 06:01:45 +0000, joh said:

In Malta, three bendy buses formerly on service in London have caught
fire. The entire fleet has been withdrawn temporarily, as an article
from the Times of Malta newspaper reports.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130827/local/fire-on-route-bus.483763


(While the page is shown with restrictions for readers outside of
Malta, you can still read the article in full by viewing the page
source.)
Times of Malta reports that three buses have caught fire within three
days, after six less serious incidents since the beginning of this
year. No passengers were harmed. The Maltese Transport Ministry and
transport authority have instructed Arriva Malta to withdraw all their
bendy buses from service while investigations are under way, starting
yesterday night. Arriva said their buses were safe, and that they could
not rule out arson.

You beat me to it - I was just about to post this after hearing it from
my daughter, who lives in Malta.

It's reasonable to say that Arriva's entrance into Malta has not been
troublefree. When I was there earlier in the year the summer service
hadn't started as Arriva hadn't reached agreement with the drivers, so
the timetables on the stops and website bore little relation to actual
running times. Those buses I did manage to catch were often driven as
if by a suicidal nutter on the way home from the pub.

But a look at the links on the Times of Malta shows a catalogue of woes
including 1294 accidents involving Arriva buses betweem July 2012 and
this April.

And now they've had to reintroduce some of the traditional buses. More
character, but I assume less air-conditioning.