NURTW Ember Months’ Campaign: Plateau Chapter Partners To Train Drivers On Safety Of Passengers

Yakubu Busari

The Plateau State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Da Yakubu Dalyop the Wallin Jos has disclosed that the union organized awareness workshop on the dangers of reckless driving during the ember months and safety of travellers on highway.

Dalyop stated this during an interview with our medium at old Bukuru Park, Jos North LGA.

He explained that they are glade that the media are here to interview him on the ember months but you came little bit late because the period of ember start in September  and  all preparation has been intensified since August. We have  prepared our people  we have given them enough lecture. We have instructed them on what to do especially  at this time  people are timing it as accident period.

Naturally, people believe that this moment  because of the increase in the numbers of travellers had increased . There are  alot accident from this period to January so best on that  the union  is aware of it so they have taken adequate measures to curtail it.

Let ensure that our drivers have good tires, as we also educate them on the danger of exceeding speeding  ,we told them about  overloading ,travelling in the night without adequate light  in the vehicle.

According to him, we have partner with the road safety to organize training in one of the Motorpark at Bukuru  which was a very huge success because all the drivers were there and  the road safety commandant and his men were there too to lecture them regarding the danger in driving.

We are  ready to go into it from the beginning to the end on accident free in this year exercise.

Speaking on hike in transportation, Dalyop  have this to say, “we don’t intend to increase transport fair and transportation fair normally come on it own at time the influx of passengers warrant it, you find out that we run scarcity of vehicles so some passengers would on their own decide to push the driver not willing to do so.

They will decide  to start increasing the transport fair by themselves especially if they are taking Abuja 10,000 then they add 10,000 making it 20,000 for the driver to carry them so that alone can convent the driver to agree particularly, we can’t  start to  increase transport fair just  because  we are happy to do so.

He added that sometimes when the prizes for fuel increase  in ember months  is not our will  to do so. The fair we are collecting  now is not commensurating with the amount we are buying fuel pump price because a litter of fuel cost 1,000 per alitter and passenger paid 7,000 to Abuja so the money a passenger paid to reach Abuja can’t fueled the car.

Dalyop lamented that before now drivers are force to spent two to three days before coming back due to the hike in prizes for PMS because if your going to come back you don’t have anything left for yourself and you have to wait for days when passengers come.

NURTW , however ,appealed to the Unit Commander to do something fast about broken down road signs on the highways, point out bad spots and accident prone areas to FERMA for quick repairs and clear heavy bushes on sharp bends so as to reduce accidents in the ember months.

He disclosed that the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Ughelli Unit has ended its annual ember month public enlightenment campaign in collaboration with NURTW, Plateau State  with a charge to road users, especially commercial drivers to check their eyes and blood pressure levels regularly.

He admonishes  drivers driving while they are not in good health, under the influence of alcoholic beverages or spirits, overloading, driving with worn out tires, over speeding, overtaking dangerously particularly in sharp bends, non use of seat belts and driving with bad lights at night.

Continuing, he stated that overloading is something that is seriously frowned upon by Federal Road Safety Corps, especially the Plateau  State.

 “We have declared total war on overloading as it highly intolerable. Therefore, we advise all commercial drivers to  avoid overloading because this leads to sudden crashes as a result of tire blowouts.”

He noted that according to law, a driver is supposed to operate on the road with a proper frame of mind as passengers entrust him with their lives.

He appealed to drivers to make sure that they are healthy before they take off on the road, saying “if you are sick, do not drive or take passengers.