RSG Links 80% Road Accidents To Bad Driving

The Rivers State Government, has attributed
80 per cent of all road accidents and traffic jams in Port Harcourt, the state
capital and its environs, to bad driving habits and carelessness of drivers on
the city roads.

Rivers State Commissioner for Transport,
Hon George Tolofari, who gave this revelation at this year’s Road Safety
Stakeholders’ Forum in Port Harcourt, last Tuesday, said as the government
begins the expansion of the city under the Greater Port Harcourt platform, it
was a collective responsibility of stakeholders to ensure that road safety was
embraced by all, not just as a safety or health issue but as a business
principle.

Tolofari charged stakeholders in both
private and public sectors to recognise some basic underlining principles of
road safety, and commit themselves to ensuring that proper road safety habits
were inculcated at all levels of the society.

The commissioner noted that from available
statistics, millions of people lose their lives, limbs and properties every day
as a result of bad driving culture, saying that it was for this reason that the
ministry put together the intervention strategy in line with the United Nations
Decade of Action On Road Safety.

According to him, the ongoing transport
sector reforms were aimed at building an efficient and integrated transport
system anchored on proper legal and regulatory frameworks, driven by
institutions created under the law and run by professionals, adding that the
policy had resulted in the active operations of Rivers State Road Traffic
Management Authority (TIMARIV), and the construction of four mega transport
terminals at Omagwa, Eleme, Oyigbo, and Emohua, to decongest traffic in Port
Harcourt city centre, among others.

In his remarks, Managing Director, Shell
Petroleum Development Company, Mutiu Sunmonu, revealed that Shell staff and
contractors drive around 1.1billion kilometers each year globally to deliver
products and keep company operations running, stressing that this was equivalent
to driving about 75 times around the world each day.

Sunmonu noted that in spite of that, Shell
had “achieved great success in helping to keep our drivers safe through
training programmes, eliminating unnecessary journeys and enforcing global road
safety standards”,

Nelson Chukwudi