The chairman of Peace Mass Transit (PMT), Chief Maduka Onyishi has said that the company is targeting zero-accident as the year comes to an end.
Onyishi said this at a one-day refresher course for 50 of the company’s drivers, organised by Greenlight Initiative in Emene near Enugu.
Onyishi, who was represented by the Executive Director Operations of PMT, Mr Uche Collins, revealed that the company vehicles convey a minimum of 30,000 passengers per day across the country.
He noted that with 3,000 vehicles loading every day in the company’s 65 terminals spread across the country, there was the need to ensure safety of passengers, particularly during the ‘ember months’ when the volume of vehicular movements usually increased.
Onyishi explained that the training programmes would enable them maintain professional discipline and right conduct bearing in mind passengers’ safety whenever they are driving.
“Apart from the training and re-training, we have other forms of control on the drivers, which includes mechanical, administrative, speed limiters, quick intervention team who checkmate the drivers on each route. We do not just train and leave them like that; we must ensure that as they drive, they apply what they were taught during training courses or workshops,” he said.
In a lecture titled; “Applying Defensive Driving on the Roads”, Mr Moses Okhiban, Deputy Core Commander of Federal Road Safety Corps, Zonal Headquarters, Enugu, attributed road crashes to three key factors – human, mechanical and environmental.
“The human factor has to do with the driver’s negligence, the mechanical has to do with faulty vehicle while the environmental has to do with the bad road or bad whether effects on the road users/drivers,” he explained.
Okhiban advised the drivers to always engage in what he called ‘defensive driving’ – a situation in which they would assume the other drivers or road users are ‘mad people’ who ought to be avoided.
“Bear in mind that every other driver is mad; use defensive driving each time you are driving and don’t trust every road user. Always bear in mind that there is always a danger on the road before you reach your destination,” he said.
He further encouraged the drivers to avoid drugs, alcohol and other intoxicants while driving since consumption of such substances would affect their sense of judgment negatively.
“Avoid needless distraction such as answering phone calls while driving; a loss of concentration for mere second could result to terrible consequences,” he added.
The Executive Director of GreenLight Initiative, Mr Simon Obi, said that it was regrettable that Nigeria had the highest record of road crashes in Africa, adding that road accident was regarded as the 6th cause of death globally.
Obi explained that not less than 100 drivers would benefit from the training after which they would be issued certificates.
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