The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority said it impounded 9,370 vehicles from January 2024 to June 2024 for alleged traffic violations.

The General Manager of LASTMA,Olalekan Bakare-Oki, gave the figure during an interview on Sunday in Lagos.

Mr Bakare-Oki said that a total of 3,034 private vehicles were impounded, adding that they comprised 1,849 cars, 549 buses and 636 Sports Utility Vehicles.

He added that it impounded 6,336 commercial vehicles comprising 5,101 buses and 1,235 articulated vehicles.

Mr Bakare-Oki said that 517 incidents were recorded during the period, adding that 77 were overturned vehicles and 440  minor accidents.

According to him, 256 casualties were recorded during the period.

He advised the motoring public to obey traffic rules and regulations and respect traffic managers.

He said, “In the last six months, it has been the good, bad and ugly, but so far, we have been able to surmount many challenges especially when it comes to training and retraining drivers. We have been able to train 2,000 of our staff, both internally and externally. We started with external training. We had collaboration with the training department of the Nigerian Police, Lagos State Command, and we were able to train over 900. We equally collaborated with our three consultants on leadership skills, emotional intelligence, customer care and incident management. We are doing all these so that we can improve on service delivery to Lagos residents. We equally want to rebuild LASTMA, rebuild public confidence in LASTMA especially in the area of public relations.’’.

The LASTMA boss said that the LASTMA Call Centre would be launched soon.

He gave the assurance that it would be toll-free, accommodate three languages – English, Yoruba and Pidgin – enable LASTMA to get feedback.

Regarding enforcement, he said that LASTMA started with clearing of the Apapa Port, during which several operations were carried out, including removal of trucks, and tankers parked indiscriminately on the Apapa route.

He noted, “Apart from the Apapa corridor and even Iyana-Ipaja, we were on the island. We entered Idumota, Apogbon, CMS and other areas, and we cleared the stretch of Lekki-Ajah axis. We were able to improve certain levels of sanity around the axis. Cumulatively, we have been able to touch the five divisions in Lagos in terms of enforcement, and this is continuous. We are bent on improving the travel time for Lagos residents especially during the peak period.’’

Mr Bakare-Oki said that LASTMA was putting everything in place to improve traffic management in Lagos State, adding that it deployed over 2,000 traffic equipment.

“At present, we have synergy and collaboration with the Nigerian Army, especially the general in charge of Ikeja Cantonment, who has been cooperative with us. Also, we have a deep collaboration with the Nigeria Police,” he added.

(NAN)