….Embarks on sensitization of road users
From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Members of Unit 5 of Special Marshals arm of the Federal Road Safety Corps in Anambra State, have warned commercial drivers, motorists and other road users against reckless driving and drinking of alcohol while driving especially in this rainy season for their safety.
The Special Marshals sensitised and educated drivers and other road users in the state to good road attitude and other safety measures on the highways.
The annual public enlightenment, which began with a thanksgiving mass at St Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, Odume Obosi in Idemili North Local Government Area of the state, attracted many special marshals of the Corps, drivers, motorists and other road users as well as residents.
The exercise led to the visiting of motor parks, roads, churches and other public places to campaign on the need for road users to exhibit good practices on the roads, teaching as well as encouraging motorists to obey all traffic rules and highway codes.
Speaking during the campaign, the Anambra State Coordinator of Special Marshal(FRSC), Patrick Esumai highlighted the importance of special marshals as the voluntary arm of FRSC which provides service to humanity in the area of teaching and encouraging motorists to obey all traffic rules with a view to enhancing sanity on the roads.
He said: “This public enlightenment campaign is a vital role we carry out as special marshals in teaching and encouraging motorists/road users to obey all traffic rules. When people exhibit good behaviours on the road, road crashes would be avoided.
“We act as a supporting pillar to FRSC and that is the reason Anambra State Special Marshals are currently engaged in building a Road Traffic Crash Clinic at Nteje Unit Command, which is intended to help accident victims to get swift and proper medical attention with little resources and we are therefore, soliciting from government, good spirited philanthropists, corporate bodies, individuals that have the interest of humanity at heart to join us in building this notable project as service to humanity.
“The special marshals are men and women of proven integrity from all walks of life, as we are trying to work in accordance with the core values of FRSC, we encourage more people to join special marshal in service to humanity and God.”
The public enlightenment lecture was delivered by the Coordinator of Unit 5 Special Marshal, Peter Nwaezuoke, with the theme, “Achieving safety on the roads”, adding that the three main factors that cause accidents on the roads are human, ecological and environmental factors.
Nwaezuoke stressed that it was it’s tradition to periodically sensitise the motoring public and other road users on good cultures and best road practices to avoid road crashes and minimise traffic congestion.
He said, “This is advocacy and interventions we are carrying out as special marshals to sensitise the people on best road practices and safety measures. We started with a thanksgiving Mass to thank God for keeping every member alive after our December and Easter patrols.
“Every year, members of the Unit 5 of the federal arm of FRSC, go for it’s annual thanksgiving. The reason we do this is because we take it as a point of duty that after the patrols and God saved us on the roads, nobody was attacked and no accident recorded, we usually thank God and since we started it, no member has been attacked.
“One of the unique things that happened this year is that prior to last year, there was a kind of security threats, normally, we use to do our traffic control on weekly basis, but due to security threat, we stopped and for sometime now, most units of the state were not doing traffic control, but our unit has been doing traffic control every two weeks and within the state, no other unit has been able to match us in the area of traffic control, but in all these traffic controls that we have been doing, God has been there for us, protecting us.
“There are three main factors that cause accidents and they are human, ecological and environmental factors. Human factors are those behaviours motorists exhibit which can lead to road crash such as drunk driving, driving without seat belt and people not putting their vehicles in order.
“The ecological factor has to do with weather, but thank God we have good weather conditions here and the last one is environmental factor which comprises of the road condition and topography. But where we place much priority is on the human factor because over 90 per cent of road crashes are caused by human factors.
“We do our special patrol at Nkpor Old Road and by the special grace of God, we have not recorded accident on these axis because we are always there educating motorists and sensitising the people to road safety guides. Last week, we were there with tricycle operators. Like we did in the church, we also do what we call church advocacy and public enlightenment on regular basis, this is to further strengthen the campaign of good road culture and for this reason, we don’t have complaints on the roads.
“The people were happy listening to us, we educated them on the proper way of making use of the roads and whenever, we do this, we observe that people are always very happy and trying as much as they can to abide by what we are preaching to them and the feedbacks have been very positive and the positive change of road attitude has been quite encouraging to us.
“Our advocacy and interventions have really reduced road crashes to the barest minimum that in the last two years, no traffic crash has been recorded in our locality. This has also reduced traffic congestions and bringing sanity to the roads and the responses from road users have been encouraging us to do more.”