DETERMINED to curtail the high rate of accidents resulting from over speeding, the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, has recommended the installation of speed limiters on all convoy and commercial vehicles in the country.

Mr. Osita Chidoka, Corps Marshal and Chief Executive Officer of the FRSC said this at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers Ikeja, while delivering keynote address at the 20th Anniversary celebration of the ABC Transport Plc.

The Corps Marshal, who was represented by the Deputy Corps Marshal, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, noted that 35 per cent of all road traffic crashes that occurred in Nigeria in 2012 was due to violation of speed limit.

He said: “The installation of speed limiters on all convoy and commercial vehicles with strict enforcement to ensure compliance is one of the measures the agency is applying to reduce the occurrences of road traffic accidents.”

According to him, the FRSC will commence the process of ranking fleet operators in the country this year, which will be based on the level of compliance with safety standards as specified by the Road Transport Safety Standard Scheme, RTSSS, and all other safety measures put in place by the operators to ensure safety and security of passengers patronizing the company.

The Corps Marshal noted that the Agency has been concerned with the fatalities associated with crashes involving mini-buses, especially those involved with overloading of goods and passengers, who  embark on long distance journeys. He stressed that overloading and use of mini buses for long distance trips are clear violation of safety codes,  and portray the lawlessness that characterized road transportation business before now.

It was against this background that the FRSC enunciated the policy of Road Transport Safety Standardization Scheme which is aimed at addressing the challenges in road transport sub-sector.

RTSSS, he said, sets minimum safety standards for the three components that guarantee safety in fleet management: the driver, the vehicle and the operational base (terminal).

So far, he said “as at the end of last year, while 2,895 operators were registered, 1,033 were inspected, out of which 722 of them that met the required standard were certified, depending on the level of their compliance with specified safety standards which determined their grade.

Meanwhile, the FRSC boss has challenged other transport companies to emulate the safety measures applied by ABC Transport. He said that road safety is a collective responsibility of all citizens and stakeholders, adding that everybody is involved either as a victim or beneficiary of safer road environment.

“We must all work assiduously to make Nigeria succeed in its quest to  become one of the 20 largest economies and safety countries in the world by 2020. We must all commit to the nation’s plans to meet this national aspiration and the target of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011-2020 which imposes on every member nation, responsibility to reduce the rate and fatality of road traffic crashes by 50 per cent within the decade,” he said.

Speaking at the occasion, the Managing Director of ABC Transport Plc, Mr. Frank Nneji, recalled how the company which now has over 450 vehicles, including high capacity trucks, luxury buses, and mini buses, started business 20 years ago with only six mini buses.

He said: “It is no longer news that we started with only six mini buses, that we operate over 450  vehicle in our fleet today. Twenty years ago, we started with less than seven staff. But today we have over 1,500 employees,  excluding contract staff.

According to him, when they started in 1993, many industry watchers wrote them off as not serious because it seemed rather unrealistic and imprudent for any businessman to invest in a sector that is largely unstructured and opposed to change.

“Regardless of our small size and lean resources, we still had faith in our abilities. And more importantly, our vision was far bigger than our doubts than what any skeptic could ever proclaim.”