From September I this
year, commercial drivers who have not installed speed limiters in their vehicles will have a rough time in the hands of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). The Lagos State Zonal Commanding Officer, Zone Rs2 of the agency, Mr Nseobong Akpabio, who made this known early this week said the idea is to minimize the rate of vehicular accidents, claiming that most of the tanker explosions and falls, most road crashes that resulted in fatality were due to over speeding.
One must really appreciate the effort of the FRSC in making Nigerian roads free for motorists and other road users. The commitment of some of their staff at accident scenes can hardly go unnoticed, not to talk of some policies and innovations aimed at making the roads safe even though it is still doubtful whether the aims of all these innovating and policies were achieved.
The drastic effect of over speeding on both drivers, commuters and the vehicles cannot be overemphasized and any effort geared at checking it must be applauded.
However, as many people have opined, overspeeding might not be the only reason why there have been increasing cases of tanker falls and truck explosions in various part of the country. There are a whole lot of other reasons like carelessness, impatience, tiredness, drunkenness on the side of the drivers, bad roads, poor state of the vehicles and many others.
Nigerian roads have been described as one of the worst in Africa. A recent survey has it that only about 15% of federal roads are in good condition. All the others including many states and local government roads are virtually impassable.
Lets take a look at Refinery Road, Eleme and Iwofe Road which lead to major tank farms. These roads are merely death traps, not fit for any vehicles, yet the hundreds of tankers navigate through them every day to load petroleum products and distributed to the public.
Many passengers on Akpajo/Eleme/Refinery roads tell gory stories about the experiences on these bad roads every day.
Many times they had resorted to prayers as tankers whose drivers were trying to dodge the gullies on the roads almost fell on their vehicles.
The most unfortunate thing is that over the years billions of naira had been budgeted for the maintenance of these roads, yet there is nothing to show for it.
Again, it sounds rather absurd that only commercial vehicles were singled out for adherence to speed limiter policy. Does it mean that private vehicle drivers do not over-speed? What of escort vehicles, bullion vans and all those that drive as if they are the sole owners of our roads? There cannot be any driver that over-speeds or violates other traffic rules like this set of persons. So, excluding them from the vehicles that need to install speed limiters makes no sense.
So, there should be wholistic look at all the factors responsible for incessant accidents on every roads which have claimed thousands of innocent lives.
Sometimes the rising wave of crime and insecurity is enough reason for someone plying a lonely or crime-prone road to increase his speed.
One will therefore want to believe that speed limiters are not our priority. As one analyst rightly said, “Nigeria is not yet a normal country. Let us try and make this country a normal country and every other thing will fall into place”. Not many drivers will opt to increase their speed, thereby risking their lives and that of their vehicles when they are sure that their environment is safe and there is no cause for alarm.
It must also be said that federal, state and local governments should prioritise the building and maintenance of roads, realizing that they are a major catalyst for development. Perhaps, it is high time we started thinking of other means of distributing petroleum products other than transporting them by road which weighs down on the few existing roads. As the FRSC Zonal Commanding offer suggested there is a need for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to repair broken down pipelines so that these products can be channeled from other deports to other states so as to reduce the pressure on the roads.
Most importantly, FRSC must be seen to be transparent in their dealings with the people. Already there is the fear that speed limiter is just another way of the agency extorting money from motorists. So the agency must dispel this fear and clear all doubt by ensuring that if the speed limiters must be used, there shall be no sacred cows.
The law must be obeyed by all concerned, irrespective of the person’s position in the society, be him uniformed man or not.

Calista Ezeaku