Danfo drivers, conductors will wear name tags soon — Toriola

                                                  

      

The Director, Vehicle Inspection Service in Lagos State, Mr. Gbolahan Toriola, talks to TOBI AWORINDE about his passion for regulating road usage

What would you say are your top three priorities in managing compliance with traffic laws?

It has to do with capacity building with the staff because those who are to carry out the job must be equipped with knowledge and the relevant skills, which is what we have been doing. When you compare the Vehicle Inspection Officers of 2015/2016 with those of 2005/2010, you can see difference in the way they carry out their duties; more professionalism is being applied.

Another thing is that we take feedback from people. We want people to tell us if we are doing things in line with the rules and regulations of our organisation.

In terms of spread, there were five zones when we came in; now, we have over 37, including six working stations. The spread is there now for people to easily access government’s services and ensure compliance. A broad spread is far better than a limited one. Now, the mere sight of a VIO on the road would caution you: “Have I done the right thing?” What are we asking people to do? They should maintain their vehicles, obey traffic rules and regulations, and obtain necessary vehicle particulars in line with the law.

The Lagos State Government banned street hawking a couple of months ago, follo

wing the death of a hawker in the state, yet the ban seems to have become lax. What is responsible for this?

It is the responsibility of government to protect lives and property; to ensure the safety of citizens. Considering what happened on Ikorodu Road, there is a law in Lagos State that says one cannot hawk on highways, not even on street roads. It is like a suicide (mission), trying to hawk on a major highway. The law enforcement agents of government, like the Kick against Indiscipline and the Task Force, are trying to enforce the law to stop traders and pedestrians from trying to cross (highways) and the likes. Government is trying to ensure that people voluntarily comply with the rules. But if they don’t voluntarily comply with the rules, they have to apply the rules of the law.

However, we are not happy about that incident, where the law enforcement officer of the state government was trying to enforce the law and the man (hawker) tried to cross to the other side, but he lost his life. What we are saying is that people should go to markets and shopping malls to sell their goods and not hawk on the highways. Apart from that, we know about the incidence of armed robbers on the streets. When we weigh the advantages against the disadvantages, we see that traders are better kept off the streets.

What is the role of the VIS in the state government’s plan to revamp the image of danfo (commercial bus, drivers and conductors?

Let’s call them yellow bus operators; we all know how they operate. We are trying to ensure that we have better and safer vehicles on our roads. Government is trying to regulate their activities. There is a department in the ministry called the Public Transport and Commuters Service, which we work in collaboration with. When you look at the law under Regulation 41 to 43, before you can use your vehicle for (public transportation), it must be accredited; you must have a sign of approval of the ministry. That is where we come in. We ensure that the bus or vehicle you want to use is in line with our standards.

The law was established to ensure four things: safety, security, sanity on our roads and standards. We want to ensure that the bus meets our standard and the operators are well known to us; that means we have their data. In order to ensure sanity, somebody would be held responsible if anything happens involving the operator of such a vehicle on the road. With that in mind, government is trying to make sure that before they can use the road, we have the data of the drivers and conductors. There will be a body tag for drivers and conductors so that if anything happens, once we know the bus code and driver code, which would be on his badge, we can easily trace such an operator. These are ways to ensure we have sanity, security, standards and safer roads.

There have been several complaints regarding the new system of obtaining and renewing driving licences. What is responsible for the bottleneck?

Driving licence (administration) is a tripartite arrangement — we have three organisations producing one product and each one needs to play its role in line with the guidelines or procedures. The Lagos State Government is trying to ensure that the producer, which is the Federal Road Safety Corps, is doing its bit too. Whatever challenges they have, they have been telling the government and I can tell you that we have expanded our operations with the FRSC such that their capturing centres have increased from five to almost 13 now, so that people can have access to it.

Once one has followed the rules, downloaded the forms, paid to the Lagos State Government and been tested by VIOs, one still has to go through the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency and the FRSC. Once you have paid and cross-checked your payments, you have to pass the VIS driving test, vision tests and others. After that, you go for biometric data capture. It is at the biometric stage that we have some challenges now. But we are trying to work with them (FRSC) to ensure they produce (the licences) on time. Once you are captured, they give you a temporary driving licence of 60 days. Sometimes, the permanent licences come early; in some cases, they come within a month and, at times, after five months. But we are trying to ensure these licences are produced on time

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When you started out, did you have a special interest in the transportation sector?

In (public) service, people are deployed based on their relevant qualifications. I was deployed from the (Lagos State) Ministry of Works to the (state) Ministry of Transportation to head the Vehicle Inspection Service. I have been here for almost eight years to ensure we improve the structure we have on the ground. We want to improve on what people before us had done in terms of the safety of our roads and ensuring that we have competent drivers on our roads and motorists obey traffic rules and regulations. To do that, we need to have a structure; a chain of command.

When you have a spread, compliance will be high. What government needs, basically, is for people to voluntarily obey traffic rules and regulations. It is not about giving fines; let them know the real thing, because one cannot quantify life. What you can do is prevent such incidents. For instance, if you are coming for your driving licence, there is a guideline that you must follow, unlike those days when one would give one’s friend one’s passport photograph with money and they would get one the driving licence. Now, one must be physically present and go through all the checks. Together with my colleagues, I believe we are doing this successfully.

I also believe that whatever one is doing, one must put passion into it and do it in line with one’s schedule of duties. You need to develop yourself and relate with other relevant agencies across the world to improve your services. I carry out a lot of studies within the VIS to better understand people’s (motorists’) behaviour, how they are complying with government’s rules and regulations, and also acquiring knowledge. One must learn from the experiences of other countries and modify it to suit one’s environment. One must be ready to learn and acquire knowledge. The aim of our organisation is to ensure that we have better roads by making sure that drivers comply with traffic rules and regulations so that we can save lives and reduce carnage on our roads.