The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has expressed its determination to mainstream bicycle transportation as part of efforts to reduce road traffic accidents in the country.
Corps marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, stated this in Abuja at the opening of a five-day training programme on traffic safety of non-motorised transportation (NMT) systems organised for 22 FRSC officials.
NMT includes walking, bicycling, skating, wheelchair travel and other forms of human-powered transportation.
Oyeyemi stated that, apart from reducing accidents, bicycling promotes clean urban transportation and physical fitness.
He said the FRSC had been in the forefront of the campaign for cycling as a means of transportation in the country over the years and the corps has developed working documents, built collaborations with other stakeholders and rolled out several programmes, including the National Bicycle Week, as part of its advocacy.
The corps marshal explained that the training, sponsored by the government of the Netherlands through its embassy in Nigeria, was in furtherance of the FRSC’s efforts.
“This is a certainty to propel attainment of the goals of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, aimed at reducing road crashes and fatalities to 50 per cent by 2020.
“We need to promote this form of transportation because, talking about climate change, Nigeria is a signatory to the Paris Accord,” he said.
“So, we need to reduce greenhouse effects through control of emission control, and this is one of the ways to do this.