30th October, 2019
Lagos State Government on Wednesday challenged the 36 states traffic officers to come up with ideas that will help to curtail the menace of tankers and trailers on roads across the country.
Commissioner for Transportation, Frederic Oladeinde said this while declaring open the National Conference of Directors/Chief Road Traffic Officers of the federation held in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
Oladeinde said in recent times, there had been rising cases of truck accidents in Lagos and other parts of the federation, saying that the time had come for the situation to be salvaged.
He told the gathering that government would want to see debates on what could be done to control truck menace in Lagos and other parts of the country.
The commissioner said it was pertinent to state that for sanity, security and standards to prevail on roads, everyone was considered a stakeholder, as the road is a shared asset by all and sundry, saying that “it is imperative therefore that everyone tow the path of honour by doing what is right while making use of the road.”
Oladeinde stated that the theme of the conference, which is “Employing Technology to enhance Compliance and Safety on our Roads, “was therefore very strategic in the implementation of relevant technology to mitigate risks, increase the rate of traffic law compliance and reduce hazards on our roads to the barest minimum.
“The deployment of smart, connected sensors, combined with machine-learning-powered analytics tools, enable us gather information, make predictions and reach decisions that will enhance safer roads. It is important to state clearly that human elements are considered the major contributing factor to road fatalities/accidents as a result of reckless driving habits that negate the principles of defensive/safe driving.”
National Chairman, Conference of Directors/Chief Road Traffic Officers (VIOs), Engr. Paul Bepeh, while ruminating on the theme, said traffic officers would no longer fold their arms and be left behind by other parts of the world in the use of technology in Motor Vehicle Administration, MVA.
According to him, “it is high time we begin to explore technology alternatively for effective performance of our schedules for better service delivery. While we cannot really say that MVA and road traffic safety have received the desired attention across the states of the federation, we are bold to say that through this body’s annual conferences and other activities, we have been able to make some noticeable changes.”
Director, Vehicle Inspection Service, VIS, Lagos State, Akin-George Fashola, said the body had a strategic framework which had enabled it move from manual operation to computer-based operation, saying that the framework was to improve on its four cardinal ‘S’, which included Safety, Standard, Sanity and Security.
“Lagos State has the highest number of vehicles plying her roads, hence the need to have a policy that would enable the populace of Lagos to get to their destination safely and on time and also ensuring that the vehicles plying our roads should be road worthy and drivers plying our roads must be certified,” he said.
Lagos State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Hyginus Omeje, said the conference should go beyond talk-shop and ensure that traffic personnel were trained in the use of technology, adding that the conference should look into the issue of road worthiness by ensuring that it was not issued arbitrarily.
He called for an end of in-house wrangling among traffic agencies, saying that the work of managing traffic was too big for a particular agency to handle, while calling for collaboration among the various traffic management agencies in the country.