- FRSC needs caution on simplistic approach to complex problems
The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has chosen a new method to address traffic violations in the country. The commission’s leader, Boboye Oyeyemi, has announced July 1 as the date to commence psychiatric examination of traffic offenders. Here is his explanation: “Fine (of traffic offenders) is not the issue; the issue is we need a positive attitudinal change of Nigeria. We cannot continue to be having fatal crashes due to traffic violations, people jumping the traffic lights, I think it is crass irresponsibility.”
Undoubtedly, conduct of many drivers on highways and urban roads is bizarre. Many drivers feel comfortable about turning one-way streets with unmistakable signs into two-way streets on the excuse of heavy traffic. Any sign of heavy traffic on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway serves as excuse for many drivers to turn a three-lane highway into six lanes. Drivers often park in the middle of the road to exchange pleasantries. Some frivolously use horns to harass or intimidate road users driving within posted speed limit. Commercial drivers are believed by passengers to consume alcohol and marijuana freely. To most observers, drivers’ attitude to traffic regulations call for modification.
However, we are concerned about the readiness of FRSC to prefer simplistic approach to a complex problem that calls for rigorous analysis and critical thinking. In addition, FRSC already has a reputation for buck passing, transferring initiatives for proper traffic management to citizens. For example, FRSC’s policy to saddle vehicle owners with installment of speed limiters is perceived as the commission’s preference readiness to make drivers do its job on its behalf, instead of installing radars to identify violators of speed limit. It is not surprising that citizens and civil society organisations for protection of human and civil rights are raising objections to the commission’s facile response to Nigeria’s myriad driving problems.
Admittedly, many Nigerian drivers need additional help to meet normal driving standards. But it is also incontrovertible that Nigeria has poor road maintenance culture and inefficient traffic management system. Both urban roads and highways are filled with craters and potholes. Indiscriminate use of pilot vehicles with sirens on the roads continue despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s complaint about such practice early in his presidency. Roadworthiness certificates are issued to them without any verification of vehicle’s roadworthiness.
While FRSC staff appear to be ubiquitous on the road, they are hardly available at points of traffic problems on the highway. Traffic lights on many roads function more as decoration than traffic regulators, because of frequent power outage. Most roads do not have essential road signs and posted speed limits required by the Vienna Convention to which the country is a signatory. Most roads and highways do not have marked lanes.
We, therefore, believe it is not realistic or objective to ascribe drivers’ conduct solely to their mental health. FRSC is not the first agency to resort to moot use of psychiatric test for citizens believed to conduct themselves irrationally. For long, calls for psychiatric tests as method to halt political and bureaucratic corruption were prevalent. The primary job of FRSC is to manage traffic in ways conducive to good driving and punish bad drivers with fines and imprisonment, not to act as a behaviour medication agency. We appeal to FRSC to review its decision on curing headache with decapitation. Infrastructural improvement, use of technology, and transparent application of sanctions are standard ways to ensure good driving in most countries. Use of breath analyzer to check excessive drinking is not synonymous with subjecting citizens to psychiatric tests.
To have an agency in a democratic country seemingly given a carte blanche to make laws that affect citizens’ human rights at will is fraught with danger for citizens’ privacy. We therefore implore the commission not to jump into subjecting drivers to psychiatric test until the multiple factors responsible for erratic behaviour of drivers have been more rigorously analysed and deficits in road maintenance and traffic management have been rectified.
Furthermore, we request the National Assembly to review the Federal Road Safety Commission (Establishment) Act 2007 that created the lacuna that makes the FRSC leadership to feel it can assault the privacy of citizens without qualms. The National Assembly cannot afford to look away from FRSC’s policy that may subvert democratic sensibilities.
