FRSC begins week-long nationwide special patrol

The Federal Road Safety Corps on Sunday began a nationwide special patrol as part of strategies to reduce road traffic accidents during the rains.
A statement issued by Jonas Agwu, the FRSC’s Public Education Officer, said the week-long exercise, tagged “Operation Rainstorm”, would focus on strict enforcement of traffic rules.
“The enforcement will be on number plate violations such as covering of number plates with plastic, use of Peace Ambassador number plates and use of plastic number plates,” Agwu said in the statement.
The exercise will also focus on the use of broken and defaced number plates, which negated the National Road Traffic Regulations 2004.
The statement also said that speed limit violation, overloading, dangerous driving, driver’s licence violation, non-use of the passenger manifest by some fleet operators and light sign violations were other areas to be addressed during the period.
It said that in addition, there would be robust public enlightenment campaigns as well as inspection of fleet and certification under the Road Transport Safety Standardisation Scheme.
It said the programme would be done through massive deployment of personnel, patrol vehicles, motorcycles, ambulances and tow trucks along designated routes and highways across the country.
It recalled that a similar exercise in May witnessed a 24 per cent reduction in road crashes and 70 per cent increase in the number of traffic offenders arrested and arraigned before mobile courts.
The statement warned motorists to comply with all traffic rules and regulations as violators would be prosecuted.