Without doubt, the rate of road crashes and fatalities is still very high in Nigeria despite all the laws and activities of the various governments and their agencies.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to unbiasely look at the reasons and take proactive actions to arrest the growing monster. I hereby profer the following as workable approaches to stem the devastating tide.
•That driver safety training should be more intensive than it used to be in Nigeria. This has become expedient because most of the drivers did not go through the conventional driving schools.
•Re-training of all categories of drivers (including the drivers of own-vehicles) should be compulsory even if it is not as regular as expected.
•The Federal and state governments and their traffic agencies should not be involved in the training and re-training of drivers. Rather, they should concentrate on traffic law enforcement. I am not saying this out of any selfish motive. Events in Nigeria is justifying this approach every passing day. For example, I witnessed the training programme of a government agency for drivers. We were about 50 in the class. At the end of the training programme, the instructors (officers of the agency) gave all the trainees (Drivers) their telephone numbers to call for help whenever we’re arrested for any traffic offense by their fellow officers. This is the common practice among the officers of government traffic agency as an appreciation for participation in their training programmes. In actual fact, they have only succeeded in making the Trainees become fearless, ready to break traffic laws and ready to be disobedient to traffic officers because they already have the numbers of those that can prevent them from facing the full wrath of the law. I personally tried it and it worked. No wonder, the training programmes by the government agencies have not been yielding the desired reduction in the rate of road accidents significantly.
Rather than taking up the re- training of drivers because of the monetary gains, they should focus mainly on the training and empowerment of driving school instructors that will be charged with the responsibility of training and re-training drivers, enact and strictly enforce the traffic laws and regulations and properly handle traffic management for free flow of traffic and compliance.
Let’s face the facts. How easy is it for any government agency to arrest, prosecute or fine drivers of companies that are paying them heavily on regular basis for the re-training of the same drivers? The best practice, which is even in operation in the United Kingdom renown for Safety Standard, is the empowerment of driving schools by the government’s Road Safety Agency (RSA), to handle the foundational training and re-training of all categories of drivers of public and private sector rganisations. It is the duty of GRA and Traffic Management Agencies to set and enforce standards for the driving schools, set and enforce traffic laws and regulations for drivers. This promotes fairness and effectiveness in their operations.
This particular suggestion may not go down well with the concerned government agencies in charge of road safety and traffic management at the Federal and state government levels because they don’t want to forfeit the income being generated from this business of re-training drivers. I, however, challenge the stakeholders and other well-meaning Nigerians to do more unbiased research and investigation on this very issue to properly understand the need for this suggestion, which I strongly believe will go a long way in drastically reducing road accidents and fatalities and enhance the standards of driving schools that will be properly positioned to comply with the set standards.
•The mindset (perception) of drivers on the use of roads should be properly addressed and adequately restructured to promote safety on the roads.
•The focus of drivers training should be further diversified from driving skills to include the perceptual, cognitive, motivational and attitudinal factors, which can greatly exert on drivers behaviour, influence their judgment and decision-making.
