AWKA – The Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) in Anambra has partnered some schools and members of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) to create awareness on safety.
The campaign which involved drama by primary school pupils and road shows led by corps members along the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway and around major roads in Awka, was supervised by officers of the FRSC.
The corps members carried placards with various inscriptions including: ‘Do not make calls while driving,’ ‘Do not drink and drive for your safety, stay alive’.
Others read: ‘use your seatbelt’, Okada use your helmet’, ‘Ear piece is a distraction to you’, ‘Do not watch your wrist watch,’ among others.
Speaking on the exercise, the Sector Commander of the FRSC in Anambra, Mr Sunday Ajayi, said the theme of the campaign: “Road Safety is a Collective Responsibility: It Depends on You”, was apt, especially in the current season.
Ajayi said that the campaign was a special way of paying respect to those who had died in road crashes and to warn the living that they should be careful.
“We have discovered a lot of children that have become fatherless and motherless because of little things that we do wrongly on the highways.
“We either use our phones while driving or refuse to fasten our seatbelt, speed, or fail to maintain our vehicles.
“We know that the people who mostly die on the highway fall within the range of 16 to 45 years of age and they are in their productive age.
“ And when they die, a lot of calamity and suffering befall their families, children and everyone around them.
“So, we are using this opportunity to appeal to the public to be serious-minded as we use the road because driving is a complex matter that must be treated as such,” he said.(NAN)