The FRSC Public Enlightenment Programmes

The continuous increase in the trend of road traffic accidents on daily basis led to the establishment of the Federal Road Safety Commission, in 1988 vide Decree 45 of 1988 as amended by Decree 35 of 1992 and re-amended in 2007 (FRSC Act Cap 141, Law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria). The mandate of the FRSC includes, ensuring enforcement of road traffic laws, collecting road accident statistics, revising road traffic legislations, promoting road safety education, ensuring adequate provision of medical facilities to victims of road traffic accidents, undertake research in road safety and co-ordination of all road safety activities. Further, Sunmaila (1992 and 2004) and Egunjobi (2000) jointly add that FRSC also has the statutory responsibility of improving road safety and by implication, reducing road transport accidents and keep avoidable crashes off public roads.

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According to Ipingbemi (2008) and Osita (2010), public enlightenment programmes of FRSC are road safety precautions put in place to bring about reduction in high road traffic accidents in Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Oyo states and Nigeria in general. Globally, all public enlightenment programmes regardless of its forms and methods, basically centres on strict adherence to road traffic rules and regulations, target at protecting passengers, the vehicle, pedestrians, commercial drivers and other road users (Holder, 2001; Hill, 2008).

As rightly put by Daramola (2003) and Ackaah and Adonteng (2011), public enlightenment programmes serve as the bedrock of sustainable road traffic activities in any nation, regardless of the industrial attainment or country involved. Dixey (1999) and Oni (2004) describe FRSC public education as the conscious training of all road users, most especially drivers of motor vehicles and motorcycles in proper and lawful behaviour on public roads and highways. The onus of the FRSC public campaign involves thorough discussions on road traffic laws and Highway Code, comprehension of road signs and traffic signals. Other cardinal principles of the FRSC public campaigns centre on knowledge of one‘s responsibilities while driving, respect for other road users, respect for traffic control officers and their directives, and finally encouraging concern for the safety of all road users and proficiency in driving. It is traffic education deficiencies that have been responsible for the road transport problems in Nigeria (Oni, 2000 and 2002; Oladimeji and Onyema, 2011).

Research evidence indicates that the human element is responsible for 80 to 85 percent of all traffic accidents. (Oni and Okanlawon, 2010; Oni and Olagunju, 2011).

FRSC (2005) and Owaba (2009) summarise the road safety publicity campaign as part of a set of activities that aim to promote safe road use. Road safety campaigns are designed to create awareness of an issue or to inform (for example, about new road safety laws), to change attitudes (for example to improve public acceptance of road safety measures).

Mackay (1997) maintains that public enlightenment programmes on road safety are meant to change behaviour, as part of a package of measures (for example, engineering and enforcement related to speeding). It is evident that the three golden rules form the bases for any road safety policy with regard to the behaviour of road-users: keep your speed down, wear your seatbelt, do not drink and drive and the need for them to be obeyed (National Highway Traffic Safety and Administration, 2006).

Various radio and television lectures on road safety precautions, as well as, jingles cum newspaper advertisements form the bulk of the corps‘ enlightenment via mass media.

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Other innovative varieties include public enlightenment programmes at motor parks, churches, mosques, and community gatherings. According to Eke, Etubu and Nwosu (2000), most of the FRSC activities are done in conjunction with public or private organised sector, especially with the banking and manufacturing industries like Nigerian Breweries, Dunlop PLC and First Bank PLC, Diamond Bank PLC, and Chevron.

Regardless of its form and method, they are meant to reduce road crashes to about 50 per cent by 2015 and by 2020 make Nigeria the 20th safest country in the world (Osita, 2008 and 2011).

Adeniji (2000) further emphasises that the roas safety campaign is important to lift the profile of a road safety problem, say speeding, as a legal or criminal issue and to make commercial drivers aware of the risk of prosecution. For example, the publicity about the number of deaths and injuries caused by speeding, combined with information about how low speed reduces the number of deaths and injuries, may change attitudes to speeding or make low speed limits and stiff penalties for infringements more acceptable. Similarly, Kessides (2006) opines that the link with law enforcement is essential: the fear of being caught and penalised for traffic offenses appear to be a more powerful motive for reducing speed than the fear of being involved in a crash.

Asides, Hananiya (1996) and Global Road Safety Partnership (2001 and 2004), state emphatically that the various road safety publicity programmes are part of a set of activities put in place to promote the safe road use, create awareness of road accident threats and vulnerability of certain road users, to educate road users as to what constitutes safe road user behaviour. Ademiluyi and Gbadamasi (2004) describe the FRSC public enlightenment campaign as a package of measures to change commercial drivers‘ attitudes and inform road users of changes in road traffic regulations. In Nigeria, the major components of the public enlightenment programmes (PEP) of the FRSC include:

(i) FRSC on television (ii) FRSC on the radio

(iii) FRSC motor park rally/lectures on road signs/symbols/markings and defensive driving

(iv) FRSC handbills/posters and billboards, and

(v) FRSC safety campaigns in videos and films on the use of seat belt and child restraints, dangerous overtaking, over speeding and overloading.

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Fig. 2.1. Total number of vehicles involves in RTC on geo-political zones Source: FRSC Annual Report, 2011.

Figure 2.1 above shows differences in number of vehicles that were involved in road traffic accident (RTC) on the six geographical zones in Nigeria. The figure 2.1 reveals that the North-central zone experienced the highest number of road traffic accident in the year under review. This is followed by the Southwestern zone, and the least being South- eastern geographical zone. It therefore means that both South-west and North-central zones are the most road traffic accident prone and deadliest zones out of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. According to Oyeyemi (2014), deficiency in commercial drivers‘ behaviour accounted for most of the road traffic accidents on the highways.

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