The Federal Road Safety Corps says it has deployed 1,300 personnel across Delta to ensure a hitch-free yuletide celebration.

Joyce Alexander, the sector commander, said this on Wednesday while on an inspection of the Asaba-Onitsha expressway with journalists.

“Every year, because the FRSC is conscious of these issues that come up at the end of the year like this, we have to make sure that we address such issues. For this year, like other years in Delta, we have about 1,300 personnel on ground particularly concentrated in Asaba; that is excluding the non-uniformed marshals called special marshals.

“We have a tow truck and about 20 vehicles; that includes our bikes, ambulances, our electrolytes, and traffic cones. We need traffic cones to push people into lanes.

“We have withdrawn men from some of our unit commands to beef up personnel in Asaba, and we have used reflective tapes to cordon off places where this recalcitrant driver used to beat traffic and cause confusion for us. Our tow truck is positioned so that if there is any obstruction, we will remove it immediately,” she said.

Ms Alexander said that the FRSC were in partnership with truck associations.

“The tow truck we have is a heavy-duty tow truck. Some smaller vehicles cannot be towed by our heavy-duty truck, so the tow truck association will help us tow smaller vehicles from the road,” she said.

She said that the problem on the highway was not bad roads but the drivers’ attitude towards traffic rules.

“The problem is not really the high volume of traffic, the problem is not really the roads that are bad, the problem is actually the impatience and the tendency of the average Nigerian driver to disobey on compliance to stay on stipulated lane.

“Let me zero in on the Coker, Ezeneyi and Abraka axis, where there is ongoing construction, and because of the construction, traffic has been diverted to the other lane, now bearing the burden of traffic going the opposite direction.

“Most drivers are so impatient, most especially the commercial drivers and security agencies, and so many other people want to divert to the other lane, causing bottlenecks and gridlock; at the end there is a traffic jam. If everybody obeys and complies with the directive to stay in their lane, the traffic will surely move, but it will move slowly,” she said.

She cautioned motorists to avoid unsafe road use practices during the period of celebration, stressing that the yuletide period is always characterised by increased vehicular and human traffic.

“It is only the living that celebrate. Make sure you service your vehicle. Sometimes the crashes we have are due to vehicles that are not well serviced, and sometimes they are due to the recklessness of the driver.

“The factors that cause road crashes mostly rest on the drivers. So I want to tell people that are travelling to please comply with safety rules and be conscious of your area of safety,” she said.

(NAN)