22nd April, 2020
Nigerian commercial drivers can sometimes be a heartless bunch, incurable rule breakers.
They seldom care if their violations affect their vehicles or cause grievous harm to other road users.
This reminds us of the popular saying in Lagos in the 1970s: A danfo bus is not mad, it is the man behind the wheels that is mad.
The trend persists even more pronouncedly these days with drivers who turn their cars or mini-buses into haulage vehicles and overload them.
The overload is so much that people can literally weep for the vehicles.
The Federal Road Safety Commission has shared on its Twitter handle many pictures of such heartless drivers around Nigeria.
We publish plenty of them today to further help the FRSC in public enlightenment.
It is in the drivers’ interest to avoid vehicle overloading.
If a driver doubts this wise counsel, he should sit back and read the following advisory from the FRSC:
*First of all, a driver commits an illegal offence when his vehicle’s maximum permissible weight limit is exceeded.
*Passenger vehicles are not meant for haulage services.
*Overloaded vehicles tend to cause excessive wear and damage to roads, bridges and pavements
*A trunk is one of the most dangerous places to be in the event of a crash. It is designed to collapse on impact to protect passengers in a car
*Motorists are advised to stop this act of criminal negligence that leads to bodily harm & carrying more passengers than seat belts
*Overloading accelerates the rate of deterioration of road pavements. It contributes significantly to poor road conditions & high transport costs.
P.M.News joins FRSC, once again, in warning the heartless drivers: Avoid vehicle overloading!