The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), FCT Command, has warned motorists against one-way driving (driving against traffic), use of phones and overloading on the highway.
The Sector Commander, Mr Samuel Ochi, said this during a press briefing on Wednesday in Abuja.
Ochi said that there was need to draw the attention of road users against violating traffic regulations in the FCT during the ember months.
He said that the public must realise that some recalcitrant offenders were capable of causing crashes, especially at the peak of the ember months.
According to him, the FRSC has taken cognisance of a number of road infractions within the FCT that call for concern.
“Those using one way are major ones. The use of one way is a very serious offence because you are likely to cause a crash or end a life of someone who may not know that a vehicle is coming his way.
“And so, we are saying that within this period, no one that is arrested for use of one way, will be released.
“We will impound such vehicles and other necessary measures will be put in place, including taking them to mobile court, ” he said.
The FRSC boss said that use of mobile phones while driving was also a big problem in the FCT.
Ochi noted also those that were beating traffic lights in the FCT, driving dangerously and those in the habit of overloading their vehicles among those causing crashes.
He said “I want to address commercial vehicle owners, particularly those that are used to overloading their vehicles.
“We are going to clamp down on all these and bring them to book. Where those vehicles are arrested, apart from paying the normal fine, we will make them pass through medical evaluation test.
“These are the measures we have put in place as we deploy massively for these ember months .
“We believe strongly that Nigerians in the FCT should be able to cooperate with us to ensure safety of lives and property,” he said.
Ochi noted that the government was doing a lot to rehabilitate and construct roads in the FCT saying that there was a need for speed bumps to be raised in some parts of the city.
The FRSC boss called on all motorists to exercise caution and ensure that by the time they got to such areas, they should not be in a hurry.
“As much as possible, we have taken cognisance of these and our deployment to these areas of construction will be very massive to ensure that we do not have gridlock in these areas.
“But we have noticed that some people are not patient enough and by the time they get to areas where we have these speed bumps that were recently raised, they are always in a hurry, leading to some level of crashes.
“We want to appeal to all motorists in the FCT not to be too much in a hurry, particularly in construction areas, so that we can have free flow of traffic, ” he said
Ochi assured all FCT residents on the massive deployment that would be done on the entrance and the exit to the FCT to avoid gridlock during the festive season.
“We have also noticed the volume of movement of people at Bwari axis, apart from the main entrance and exit of the territory.
“I can assure you that enough will be deployed within this period that will cover all that. We have on ground a total number of 2,715 personnel that will be fully deployed and already we have our Zebra points.
” Zebra points are ambulance points. We have precisely twelve ambulances within FCT alone that will be responding to any emergency that may occur during this period.
“I want to assure residents that there would be peace as far as road traffic is concerned and we will do our best to ensure that any emergency is promptly responded to, ” he said.