FRSC boss seeks improved funding for special patrols on highways.............. THE Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Osita Chidoka, has urged the Federal Government to fund the commission adequately to enable it conduct regular special patrols in the country. According to Chidoka, lack of adequate funding has been hampering the sustenance of the patrols in the country, stressing that such area of operation by the commission was needed to reduce accidents on the highways. He said that patrols had helped to reduce road accidents in the country, especially in the first half of 2013, thus, pleading with the government to assist the commission to acquire more patrol vehicles for that purpose. The FRSC boss identified over-speeding as one of the major factors responsible for accidents recorded across major highways during the period. His words: “Whenever we go on special patrols, we witness a sharp decline in the crashes and part of the major challenges this year (2013) has been over speeding across some major corridors. “We’ve identified some key corridors and we have tried to do mobile patrols on those corridors. “Now, funding is a major drawback, because we can’t sustain that level of mobile patrol for a long period of time. “So, I have been making a case to government to see how we can deal with these issues at least on a case by case basis.” He, however, listed those corridors, where special patrols were needed to reduce road crashes as Abuja-Yangoji-Lokoja, Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan, Shagamu-Ijebu Ode, Ore-Benin, Onitsha-Owerri, and Benin-Agbor-Asaba Expressways. Chidoka said that special intervention was also needed on those routes in the second half of 2013, to create awareness and step up enforcement of traffic rules to reduce accidents. “These roads are newly recovered roads; they are newly rehabilitated roads and people are underestimating the impact of what over-speeding can do to them on those roads. “So, we need to increase enforcement on these roads; we also need to increase education and awareness, which is one of the reasons why we have gotten some partners like Exxon/Mobil, Keystone Bank, UBA who have come on board to help us in the issue of awareness,” he added.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:19:13 +0000
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