Road safety corps warns against night travel

Following the spate of road crash fatalities
resulting from night-time travels, the Federal
Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in a press release on
Friday, November 4, reiterated its warning to the
general public to desist from night trips due to
obvious and inherent dangers associated with
such trips.
Making this declaration, the Corps Public
Education Officer, Corps Commander Imoh Etuk
highlighted numerous factors which negate night-
time travels in Nigeria at the moment such as the
poor state of roads, inadequate rescue services,
fatigue, inadequate road signs/markings and poor
vehicle maintenance culture.
Speaking further, Etuk emphasized on the change
of light intensity and blur effect of night driving
on the vision of drivers which increases the
probability of road crashes at night. Under this
circumstances; according to him, when light
levels are reduced, the pupil of the eyes open up
in size to admit more light thus making what the
driver sees to become blurred.
Continuing, the FRSC spokesman said “since the
human eye takes time to adjust to new levels of
light, a driver on night trip suffers temporary
vision impairment when moving from bright areas
(motor way intersections in the urban centres) to
dark areas(rural areas where there is minimal
road lights)”.
Commander Etuk also traced another negative
impact of night-time driving to the glare from
automobile lights, particularly from the rear view
mirror which can lead to temporary loss of a
driver’s vision, recalling that “at 100 metres/ph, a
vehicles moves at 28 metres per second, meaning
that the lives of all occupants of such vehicles
will be put to serious danger when the driver
suffers a temporary loss of sight”.
He also recalled with concern, the recent night-
time fatal crash on 18th November 2015 at
12.10am, at Sango Ota, old toll gate end of the
Lagos-Abeokuta express way which resulted to
the death of 9 persons and leaving others with
serious injuries. According to Commander Etuk,
“media reports indicate that the crash occurred
when a truck loaded with cement, apparently had
a brake failure, veered off the its lane and
rammed into several other vehicles”
Reacting to measures being initiated by the Corps
to curb the trend of night trips in Nigeria, the
Corps Public Education Officer expressed the
FRSC’ concern over traffic peculiarities associated
with the yuletide season and the penchant for
night trips among Nigerians during this period
and reiterated the Corps’ advise for the motoring
public to desist from night travels.
However, he added that since the FRSC does not
wish to step on the fundamental human rights of
most Nigerians to move freely, it is still
instructive to advise the motoring public on the
hazards associated with this practice. “This
underscores why we embark on robust public
awareness campaigns for Nigerians to appreciate
the grievious dangers of travelling at night at the
moment because of the absence of the proper
indices to ensure the safety of those who prefer
to travel at night”.
He also frowned at the use of extra lights by
drivers of heavy duty vehicles due to its dazzling
effect on other drivers, adding that the FRSC
operatives have been mandated to prosecute any
driver who carries extra light on his vehicle which
is violation of the provisions of the National Road
Traffic Regulation, 2004.