Bisi Kazeem (Head, Media Relations and Strategy, Federal Road Safety Commission)

Speed limiters would curb accidents on Nigeria roads. We started this campaign on speed limiters with advisory enforcement. In the Federal Road Safety Commission, we use a four-prong approach system to achieve our goals. This includes education, subtle force, persuasion and enforcement/prosecution.

Advisory enforcement is when we stop commercial motorists and verify online if they have fixed speed limiting devices in their vehicles. If we discover that the device has not been fixed, we will give a ticket to the offending motorist. By January next year, we will begin enforcement.

When we started yesterday, we gave tickets to 2,800 erring commercial vehicle operators nationwide.

There is no gainsaying the fact that speed limiters would curb accidents on our roads. From the data available to us, speeding by commercial vehicles accounts for 58 per cent of the accidents on our roads. So, we have to look for ways to limit speeding by our motorists.

We are partnering stakeholders such as the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Luxury Bus Owners Association of Nigeria, Petroleum Tanker Drivers Union, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, National Union of Road Transport Workers, among others. It would interest you to know that we have postponed enforcement three times. We don’t want a clampdown; that is why we are embarking on advisory approach.

The speed limiter is a calibrated device that would be placed in the vehicle. It is meant to limit the speed of vehicles. Private vehicle owners too would soon be advised to go and get the device. When the device is fixed in your vehicle, you won’t be able to go outside the speed you are limited to. We urge commercial motorists to go and get the device. They shouldn’t wait till they are forced.

Accredited dealers have been screened by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and the National Automotive Development Council, among others. We have taken our campaign to all the segments of the transport sector. You can get the device at designated centres.

 

Duke Orusara (Taxi driver)

It is a noble idea. If properly implemented, it would curb carnage on our roads. Accidents would be minimal if speed is reduced to a manageable extent. But the device should not be for public transporters alone; it should include private vehicles, whose drivers, sometimes, are worse than public vehicle drivers in terms of recklessness and speeding.

I think the device should be made affordable. It shouldn’t be scarce. It shouldn’t be a means to generate funds for some people. Nigeria is reputable for making some people rich overnight. I only hope it is not another contract to line the pockets of the boys. We must guard against that. The campaign must be for altruistic purpose.

In order to make the whole effort impactful, government should fix our road infrastructure. Dangerous potholes on our roads are speed limiting on their own. They are also a big cause of fatal road accidents. This initiative would be meaningless if we limit speed and still have carnage on our roads as a result of the terrible state of our roads.

 

Olufemi Ajewole (Ex-President, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria)

The introduction of speed limiters is a good initiative but the timing is wrong. The introduction of speed limiters at this period of recession is wrong. This is the period when parents and guardians are paying the school fees of their children and wards. The essence of hard work is for the hardworking employee to be able to meet up with his or her financial obligations. Of what use is it for a hardworking parent or guardian not to be able to meet up with his or her children’s/wards’ financial obligations?

Because of the liquid cash available in the road transport sector, you would find out that a lot of graduates troop to the sector. You would find out that a lot of graduates who did not read transport management throng the sector. I think government is focusing attention on the sector because of the liquid cash in it.

Government needs to upgrade our roads. Take the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway as an example; during the 1980s, you can get to Ibadan from Lagos in 60 minutes. It is no longer so today. You can spend up to six hours on that road now. Using speed limiters on a bad road network is double jeopardy.

The money drivers should use to buy good tyres and fix their vehicles would now be used to purchase speed limiters. Bad roads are spoiling the vehicles plying Nigerian roads.

 

Goodluck Oyinbo (Chairman, Folagbade Unit, Phase II, Biode Park, Ojota)

The introduction of speed limiters cannot stop accidents on our highways. Many of the luxury buses you see on the highways have speed limiters, yet they are involved in accidents. Speed limiters cannot curb accidents on the highways, I repeat.

It is the collective resolve of road users that could curb road accidents on Nigeria’s highways. Safety is in the hands of God. Drivers who don’t speed, end up having accidents atimes.

What the speed limiters would do is to check speeding; if it does this, what about recklessness? You may not be speeding and be very reckless. Recklessness too could lead to accidents.

I just hope the introduction of the device is not to make money for some few people. I don’t think motorists would have the money to buy it because we are in a recession. Government should let this recession subside before introducing the device.

 

Kolajo Dada (Commercial bus owner)

Speed limiters cannot work as a means of curbing road carnage in Nigeria. It is an obsolete technology. In other parts of the world, they don’t use speed limiters. They use advanced technology to detect if your vehicle is speeding.

Vehicle owners should not be subjected to bear the cost of the device. I’ve travelled to some advanced countries like the US and Israel, among others; I didn’t see vehicles using speed limiters. Nigerian governments are wont to burden the masses with their own responsibilities.

Have we addressed the issue of bad roads? How would the FRSC track offenders? How many officials does the FRSC have to enforce compliance across the country?

How do you fine commercial vehicles conveying passengers? Will you tell passengers to disembark? I hope this would not be another source for FRSC officials to take bribe from motorists.

 

Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (A Senior Advocate of Nigeria)

The losses we have suffered on our roads are just too much. We have lost our best, our most beautiful and our dearest to avoidable road accidents. Speed limiters are not peculiar to Nigeria alone; it is a global phenomenon used to check accidents.

Our drivers are noted for recklessness and this must be put in check because a responsible government cannot afford to look on when her citizens are being killed daily in road accidents. In the long run, it would reduce carnage and make our roads saner.

There are a number of factors responsible for carnage on our roads apart from speeding.

They include the use of expired tyres, the use of unserviceable vehicles; the use of drugs by drivers, among others. When you have all these playing out on our roads and you add speeding to them, you can be sure the result is disaster. So, we must check accidents on our roads.

I think every driver in Nigeria should have a mental test every three years. I believe that when you curb speeding on our roads, it would go a long way in checking the fatality and rate of road accidents across the country.

Some people could argue that our bad roads are speed limiters, but you would agree with me that most fatal accidents are caused by speeding and recklessness. The question to ask is: how do most of our drivers ride on the bad roads? They ride recklessly, of course, and this leads to deaths in many cases.

Some people may say that this time of recession is not the best time to introduce speed limiters.

But recession period is the time to start new things such that when we return to the period of buoyancy, people would have become used to the device. No amount of money can raise the dead.

No amount of money is worth the life of an individual. When people shout recession, has partying every Friday reduced? Recession shouldn’t be an excuse to stop the speed limiter campaign from taking off.

 

Source: Punchng.com

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