Bus drivers are from hell
Since the gavel was dropped on the policy to drive the poor from the FCT with Adamu Aliero, people have moved to the suburbs pushing traffic to its elastic limits. Logic would demand the FCT expand road traffic recruitment to ensure proper policing of traffic, but it is not as lucrative as erecting car wreckers […]
Since the gavel was dropped on the policy to drive the poor from the FCT with Adamu Aliero, people have moved to the suburbs pushing traffic to its elastic limits. Logic would demand the FCT expand road traffic recruitment to ensure proper policing of traffic, but it is not as lucrative as erecting car wreckers at every junction in a city with epileptic power supply? An FCT Traffic Unit would provide jobs for the jobless while its efficiency will rake in needed cash to meet at least recurrent expenditure. What more, their effective operation would restore needed safety and sanity on the roads.
It is true that 98 per cent of the intractable traffic problems in the FCT are a result of the attitude of commercial drivers. Low in intellect, high on ego and substance abuse and vast in spreading corruption the highway is a theatre of the absurd. On three lane roads, they invent three extra ones. Their ill-maintained cars can break down at will and there is no sacred place where they cannot stop to pick or drop passengers. Ever rude to their own passengers and insolent to other road users their deviance blocks traffic and increases stress for other road users.
They do not follow a line of three cars even if it is signalling for a left turn, but will keep creating more lanes until they are four or five lanes across, then they dash for the road when it is time to move endangering the lives of other road users. All this to the insouciance and the amusement of law enforcement agents. seldom where the law officer intervenes, it is to punisg a law-abiding driver for the mad one to join the right queue. Sanity can be reintroduced on Abuja roads with a mobile courts sitting at peak hours and enforcing safety compliance. A moving traffic is better anyday than a senseless blockade.
In fact, it suffices sometime to park erring drivers and makes them lost valued time without option of fine. Such deterrence applied once or twice in a day restores the sanity of an insane driver better than monetary fine or jail terms. When the officer clears the way for him to join the real queue, he is compensated for lawlessness and only jumps into something worse once outside the eyeshot of the law officer.
Psychiatric cases also work with clinical efficiency as is done in Lagos, especially when, coupled with the embarrassment of being called a psycho, the driver is made to pay for the consultation. Need we say that for effect, we need to enlist the support of the senior outlaws! To start with, the FCT Minister must outlaw the use of sirens; so should resident ministers, traditional rulers and visiting governors. Of course, we need to get David Mark and Dimeji Bankole to lead by example and leave their Apo Mansion well ahead of time with the message – leave early to arrive early and safely too. They should be made to stop the daily procedure of running tax-payers and road users of the road – as a habit. Their lives are as valuable as the cleaner on the street. We also need to get CBN and other bullion vans never to drive on the opposite lane no matter what. Reckless driving has never deterred robbery. If a bullion van follows the queue it won’t draw attention to itself and nobody will know what it is carrying. Unnecessary attention makes miscreants get unnecessary ideas.
It beats normal imagination why the military built the Presidential Villa on a designated green area, then surrounded it with military fortifications called barracks. But successive civilian occupiers of the Villa feel cool with such clear and present intimidation. However, it is a thing of concern that the barracks and its soldiers are a law unto themselves. Where bus stops are designated the soldiers outlawed them. Then, as it pleases their minders, they push them on the streets on endurance treks without announcement, close traffic on an entire lane and endanger the lives of thousands of other road users. Woe betides any motorist that challenges their decision on such days. This deviant behaviour must stop, we are in a pseudo-democracy. The privilege that our taxes confer on our soldiers is not meant to lord it over us but make them serve our general interests and respect our laws.
Lest I forget, bus stops are not supposed to be lay-bys. They should large enough to contain vehicles and at least 100 metres away from heavy traffic lanes. This will offer no excuse for anyone ignoring them and dropping passengers anywhere and anyhow. Laws must be made concisely to leave no room for excuses even as ignorance is not an excuse.