Emmanuel Ugwu in Umuahia
With the rising cases of accidents involving human factors the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has been urged to insist that only well trained drivers were issued with driver’s license.
The Special Adviser to the Governor of Abia State on Public Orientation, Dr. Anthony Agbazuere made the call during a courtesy visit to the state commander of FRSC, Linus Ojukwu, noting that it was high time was made to attain professional status.
“Driving is a vocation and whoever wants to become a professional driver must be trained in a driving school where he would not only get the skills but also learn the rules of driving as every profession has rules and ethics guiding it.â€
According to him, it was both in the personal interest of a prospective professional driver and also of public interest for drivers to be trained in the driving school before taking to the road, adding that the trend whereby people “just pick†driver’s license and start driving should be stopped.
Agbazuere, who is a constitutional lawyer and human rights activist, commended the FRSC for the quality of its services, pointing out that the Commission has stood out among the federal agencies that do their jobs well.
He said that there was no doubt that FRSC enjoys over 90 per cent public confidence unlike most federal agencies because of the dispositions of FRSC officials to their duty.
He also commended FRSC for the introduction of speed limiters in vehicles but he appealed that drivers should be allowed to pay for the device on installments because of the high cost.
In his response, Ojukwu said that speed limiter has become very necessary as most road crashes occur because of over speeding and it was expected that speed limiters would effectively check overspeeding.
However he explained that FRSC has no control over the cost of speed limiter since the device is in the hands of vendors who sell them to drivers while FRSC only enforces compliance.
Ojukwu stated that strict regulatory measures was now in place which makes it impossible for driver’s license to be issued by proxy, adding that both the driver’s license and the new plate numbers are security devices hence they could be used in recovery of stolen vehicles.
