The Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Malam Shehu Mohammed, is leading the end-of-year monitoring exercise to assess traffic situations in some parts of the North Central and Eastern regions.
Addressing the press on Sunday along the Lokoja-Abaji highway in Abuja, Mohammed said that the exercise was aimed at ensuring a safe motoring environment for commuters and travelers during the yuletide season.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the special patrol operations are targeted at ensuring zero fatalities and injuries during the end of the year travels.
NAN reports that the Corps Marshal will be on a strategic monitoring of traffic situation on the highways, specifically on the Abuja -Lokoja-Okene-Agbor-Asaba-Onitsha passageways due to the high vehicular movement on that route.
The FRSC boss emphasised the importance of obeying road traffic rules and regulations, urging drivers to exercise caution and avoid reckless driving.
He said that the exercise was a yearly tradition, aimed at encouraging personnel and ensuring a safer motoring environment.
“This is a special time for yuletide where all personnel of FRSC are out. You can see that I am here with some of our personnel and the entire management is here.
“The idea is for us to monitor and supervise this year’s operations, to create a safe motoring environment for people, for commuters and travelers to have a safe mobility to their destination.
“This is done every year and the entire management is out to encourage our staff to make sure that our mandate of keeping the road safe for all is strictly adhered to.
“We call on the motoring public to continually obey the road traffic rules and regulations so that together, we can achieve the successes of this period and this special patrol.
“We just started, we will be moving for the whole period until January 15, 2024,”he said.
The FRSC boss, however, appealed to passengers to speak out when they noticed reckless driving, saying “if you see something, say something” to help prevent crashes.
Mohammed commended the motoring public for their cooperation and adherence to road safety guidelines, noting that the FRSC would continue to work tirelessly to ensure a safer motoring environment for all road users.
“From my observations, for now, the traffic is moving, drivers are obeying the rules, only in some few instances and that’s why we will continue to move and we will be stopping to check and cross check what they are doing.
“This is also a period where we can stop to sensitise them, do some public and education enlightenment on the road to make sure we achieved the theme for this year.
“We also want to tell the passengers to speak out when they see their driver is recklessly driving or doing the bad habit of driving.
“We are also appealing to them to talk to them so that we achieve the successes and reduce road traffic crashes this time around,” he said.
NAN also reports that the special monitoring provides an opportunity for the Corps Marshal to assess the performance of personnel during the Operation Zero tolerance to traffic crashes.