Yuletide crashes

Our Reporter

In its tradition, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has deployed 39,450  personnel for the Christmas and New Year celebrations to ensure sanity on the highways. In addition, 806 patrol vehicles, 120 ambulances, 204 motor bikes and 27 tow trucks would be designated to specific routes across the country.

FRSC’s spokesman, Bisi Kazeem, made these known in a statement on Monday. The special patrol commenced on December 15 and would last till January 19, 2020.

According to Kazeem, “[It would] entail 24 hours enforcement along major highways, robust public enlightenment campaigns across the nation, prompt rescue/recovery services, stakeholder collaboration, road safety observatory, uninterrupted motorised patrol, day time route lining, traffic control, operation of mobile courts, activation of high alert on internal and external medical facilities, establishment of road camps and help areas, aerial surveillance, and purposeful synergy with other security agencies.”

Obviously the special arrangement was informed by the high number of casualties from road accidents during festive periods. Indeed, the FRSC begins its special campaign for a better road culture from September to December of every year (what we refer to as the ‘ember months’).

Whereas the increase in the number of road crashes in this period is caused more by human errors, carelessness and over-indulgence, the accidents are blamed on the devil or some evil spirits.

Things come to a head in December when many people travel for the Yuletide celebrations to their home towns or villages and the roads are generally busier.

We thus have commercial motorists who want to make more trips than they normally travel, to make more money.

In the process, they throw all caution to the wind; overload their vehicles, pay little or no attention to the state of their vehicles, as in whether the vehicles are fit for such increase in the number of trips per day or not. Many of them even forget that they are human and they cannot cheat nature.

Yet, many of the drivers drive for longer periods than they should or their bodies could cope with and end up sleeping or dozing off on motion.

Read Also: Yuletide: FRSC warns against over-speeding, dangerous driving

All of these are not helped by the terrible conditions of many roads in the country, be they intra or inter-state.

It is in view of all these that we welcome this Yuletide special arrangement that has become an annual ritual by the corps.

It is particularly commendable given the several black spots that the operation would be taking place. These include 52 designated critical corridors such as Lokoja-Benin-Auchi, Abaji-Lokoja, Abuja-Keffi-Akwanga-HawanKibo-Jos, Minna-Birnin-Kebbi-Sokoto-Gusau-Funtua-Zaria, Potiskum-Damaturu, Kabba and Udi-Orji River-Awka-Owo, Ibadan-Ogere-Sagamu, Abuja-Airport Road-Giri and Opi-Junction-Nike-Enugu Highways, among others.

However, we must add, and quickly too, that it is not necessarily the number of personnel that the FRSC or other security and safety agencies deploy that would ensure sanity on the roads.

Sanity can only prevail on the highways when they do their work conscientiously and with the cooperation of other stakeholders, particularly the motorists.

The latter must realise that life has no duplicate even as there are no spare parts for some body parts that could be damaged when accidents occur.

So, they must guard against all the tendencies that result into avoidable tragedies on the roads. Over-speeding, drunk driving and driving of rickety vehicles that should be off the road should be avoided.

In the same manner, they should carry out daily checks on their vehicles to ensure all is well before hitting the roads.

Above all, they must realise that they are not the only ones on the roads and should therefore be considerate of other road users.

We congratulate the FRSC for the establishment of its own radio station, the National Traffic Radio 107.1 FM. This should facilitate its enlightenment and education on better road culture as well as daily traffic updates for travellers, among other advantages.