It is good news that Operation Scorpion, a special patrol executed by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway between July 27 and 31 (just five days), recorded 537 arrests and convictions.
But it is not so good news that barely four days after the close of Operation Scorpion, a fuel-bearing tanker on Ikorodu Road, Lagos, smashed three other cars before spilling its diesel content on the road and subjecting other road users to a hideous six-hour gridlock.
The Scorpion success and the Lagos setback just underscore the menace of drivers of tankers and container-bearing trailers, and even unruly Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) drivers to other road users. Indeed, drivers of articulated trucks appear to be on a reckless campaign to maul fellow citizens, perhaps for their temerity to use the roads. The government must call these irresponsible drivers to order.
The infractions of the arrested 537 truck drivers are instructive. According to FRSC: trucks moving with unsecured containers, rickety trucks, overloading, battered tyres, lane indiscipline, reckless driving and over-speeding with wanton disregard of the weight for the heavy vehicles, and driver’s licence expiration.
If the operations had been carried out in the night, much more would have been nabbed for poor (almost suicidal) front and rear lighting (if any at all); and thick smoke emissions, coupled with no rear-lighting, that temporarily blind other drivers. For that, many have rammed into stationary vehicles in fatal crashes, in which the few who escaped death copped horrendous injuries. That has continued for too long, as if no one was in charge of regulating conduct on our roads. It should not be allowed to continue.
The FRSC should be commended for its successful patrol to make Nigerian roads safe for everyone. But instead of special operations, such patrols should be routine, an everyday affair — and duly publicised as such — so that errant drivers can have the consciousness that the road is not exclusively theirs to water with fellow citizens’ innocent blood.
Still, the most vital task is enforcing vehicular regulations, even before they hit the road. That would be travelling on the road of prevention, which is by far better than cure.
Those reckless drivers on the road, do they have valid drivers’ licences, granted after passing rigorous driving tests? Are they by any chance under-aged? Did they get the right education and training on how they must relate the weight of their vehicles, to speed, to achieve a harmonious balance? Do they even know the worth of weighbridges to gauge vehicular weights — and even, do the traffic authorities make weighbridges available these days?
And battered vehicles on the road: with smashed windscreens, battered front and rear lights, and worn-out tyres — is there anyone tasked with making sure these vehicles are roadworthy? And if suspect vehicles hit the roads, what are the mechanisms to get them off and promptly punish the offenders?
Then, the most notorious set of offenders: trailers with their containers falling off, often crushing smaller vehicles and their occupants — whose duty is it to ensure that no trailer is driven on Nigerian roads, which container is not firmly secured?
These are the troubling questions the FRSC, their state equivalent like the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA), the Police traffic unit and other traffic-control and regulatory agencies must ponder and promptly answer. Besides, federal and state traffic agencies must so harmonise their operations such that each discharges its duties without any clash or friction.
Operation Scorpion was a good wake-up call. Now is the time to go after the killer drivers on our roads.
