Corps Marshall of the Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Boboye Oyeyemi, has said the agency was not comfortable with road crashes and casualties, depsite the reduction in the January and August figures.
Boboye addressed reporters in Abuja on the corps’ plan to ensure safety on the roads during the Eid-el-Kabir celebration across the country.
The FRSC chief said the corps was paying attention to Sallah Special Patrol and the enforcement of speed limiter.
He noted that though the corps’ recorded a reduction in road crashes between January and August, an improvement of the figures recorded between the same period in 2015, figures of crashes and road incidents are unacceptable and must brought down significantly.
According to the Head Media Relations and Strategy of the Corps, Bisi Kazeem, while deploying 20,000 personnel, 697 patrol vehicles, 283 motorbikes, 76 ambulances and 22 tow trucks for Sallah patrols opined that analysis showed that from January to August 2015, a total of 5,953 crashes were recorded involving 39,119 people in which 3,233 of them died and 17,189 others were rescued alive.
However, within the same period in 2016, 5,707 crashes were recorded involving 38,222 people out of which 3,048 died and 17,446 others were rescued alive.
Other comparative analysis with regard to the Eid El Kabir traffic revealed that the Corps recorded a total of 94 crashes involving 767 people out of which 44 died and 312 others were rescued alive. Within the same period, 8,004 offenders were apprehended for 9,045 offences.
In the words of the Corps Marshal “between January to August 2015, the Corps apprehended 339,551 offenders for 376,391 offences compared to 421,816 in the same respects, in 2016”.
He lamented however that the Corps’s interest is compliance to road traffic laws and regulations, and does not consider the upsurge in arrest as a positive.
Kazeem stressed that the Corps Marshal has, however, noted that the success of the Corps is attributable to the findings of recent survey conducted on public understanding of the Corps’ functions and consequent support base which showed an increased from 51% and 52.3% in 2015, to about 57% and 59% in 2016.
