ONITSHA – The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) on Friday pledged to reduce road accidents on the Onitsha-Owerri road by 50 per cent as its target for the second special intervention patrol.
Its Zonal Commander in-charge of Edo, Delta and Anambra, Mr Charles Akpabio, made the pledge during the inauguration of the patrol campaign at Oraifite, Ekwusigo Local Government Area in Anambra.
Akpabio said the first patrol, which covered Benin-Agbor-Isele Ukwu-Asaba road, led to the reduction of accidents and deaths in the zone.
He said that between November 2013 and March 2014, the Onitsha-Oraifite-Ihiala-Mgbidi axis of the Onitsha-Owerri road recorded 21 crashes.
According to him, eight were fatal with 11 people dead in the accidents.
“Forty-five vehicles were involved in the 21 accident while we had 215 people involved; 70 people got serious injuries while 13 people got minor injuries.
“And we have vowed to reduce it to the barest minimum through the campaign and call for the co-operation of everybody living and doing business along the Onitsha-Owerri road.
“Our men will be patrolling between Onitsha and Mgbidi with six vehicles non-stop each day apart from the regular surveillance points.
“We have done our home work and seen that road crashes could be reduced to 15 per cent and fatality rate reduced to 25 per cent.
“And we are going to use the judiciary through mobile courts to ensure that repeat offenders face the music,’’ he said.
The commander said the officers on patrol would focus on overloading, excessive speeding, use of alcohol before and during driving and use of seat belts.
“We will make sure that no driver drives above 100 kilometres per hour on this road.
“And the issue of over loading will be a thing of the past as we are going to hammer seriously on it and even set up monitors to check regular marshals on patrol.
“We are going to use breathalyser and other instruments meant to detect the condition of erring drivers,’’ he said.
The campaign was attended by the army, the police and FRSC in the zone. (NAN)