By: Smart Olawale
…the society seems unfazed by the undesirable trend…
An assistant Corps marshal, Jonas Agwu has queried the carefree attitude of the Nigerian populace in response to the incessant cases of road crashes caused by irresponsible driving.
In his column that appeared on This Day and Leadership Newspaper on the 13th and 20th of February respectively, he lamented the level of irresponsible driving that has led to numerous road accidents.
Despite the huge number of death and injuries recorded, Jonas Agwu argued that the society seems unfazed by the undesirable trend.
He compared road crashes to airline crashes. While airline crashed receives more attention and sympathy, Agwu said that “Unfortunately, the reverse is the case when there is road crash.”
“It is either swept underneath or the blame shifted to Government for its numerous failures. Nobody x-rays the spate of irresponsible driving which society has tacitly endorsed as cool” he posited.
Narrating sad stories of two persons he knew, including an FRSC official who died in separate accidents caused by irresponsible motorists, the FRSC boss called the attention of the public to what he described as Road Accident Immune Delusion Sydrome (RAIDS).
He described RAIDS as a catalyst behind numerous avoidable accidents and defined it as an “attitudinal challenge among road users”, a situation whereby drivers live with the delusion that they are immuned from road accidents.
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“What this means is that the typical road user is unfazed by the numerous arguments put together by the Federal Road Safety Corps to tilt irresponsible driving,”
“There are those who brag about their faith in God Almighty. This category will be quick to reject death through road traffic crash yet they will indulge in night travel despite the inherent risk involved.”
“There is another category whose boast is on the kind of car they drive-American speck which multiple airbags for their safety.”
“This category forgets that airbags and seatbelt are effective in a crash situation where the necessary safety rules were complied with” he wrote.
He added that “although these crashes could also be attributed to mechanical and environmental factors, majority of them are linked to human factor (attitude): brake failure, loss of control, speed violation, fatigue, poor vehicle maintenance culture, drunk driving, distracted driving and other related factors”
Agwu opined that the spate of irresponsible driving and deaths recorded owe to “the absence of the necessary and appropriate response”.
He concluded that “it is unacceptable to have so many men, women and children dying unnecessarily from road crashes in our country. It is even more dismaying, because we all know road traffic crashes are preventable and if they do happen, death is not inevitable”.
