Yemi Akinsuyi in Abuja

The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has impounded no fewer than 1,293 vehicles and also penalised 1,402 offenders within three weeks.
The commission observed that majority of the drivers were operating without driver’s licence while offences such as lane indiscipline, rickety vehicles and overloading accounted for some of the offences for which the violators were prosecuted.
The Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, who stated this at a press briefing monday in Abuja, noted that 826 offenders were arraigned before the courts out of which 753 were convicted with option of fines.
He explained that the FRSC would sustain the enforcement of road safety ethics through multi-dimensional approach, adding that the corps had stepped up training of haulage vehicle and tanker drivers.
Oyeyemi explained that the focus of the operation was unlatched and unsecured containers, lane indiscipline, overloading violation and licence violation.
He said: “Within the three weeks that we have sustained the operation, a total of 1,402 offenders have been apprehended with 1, 981 offences booked by our patrol men across the country.
“In the same vein, a total of 1,293 vehicles were impounded while the vehicle papers of 138 of the offenders were confiscated. Let me state that enforcement is part of the multi-dimensional approach we have adopted to achieve the goal of making our roads safer.”
The corps marshal said his agency had since January this year embarked on series of advocacy, sensitisation and collaboration with all the stakeholders involved in haulage transportation and allied businesses, to sensitise them towards imbibing safe driving culture.
In addition, he said FRSC had established four specialised driver’s license centres across the country to cater for issuance of commercial driver’s licence for tankers and trailers at Suleja, Warri, Kaduna and Lagos.
Boboye explained that the commission would commence another operation targeted specifically at tankers operating without minimum safety standards from September 2015, stressing that tankers that have not met the minimum safety standards would not be allowed to load the petroleum products from depots.
