The Vehicles Inspection Officers (VIO) in Nasarawa State has trained more than 120 commercial drivers and tricycle operators on safety measures to avoid road crashes.
The Director, Road Traffic Service of VIO, Mr Victor Iya, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia on Monday.
Iya said that the participants were carefully selected from the 13 Local Government Areas (LGA) of the state.
He explained that the training was necessitated by the recklessness of some of them thereby leading to avoidable loss of lives and property on the road.
He said that apart from the enforcement of traffic rules and arrest of offenders, the organisation had decided to also carry out sensitisation on safety measures.
The director said the VIO is collaborating with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and other relevant unions in carrying out the training.
He expressed optimism that the synergy would go a long way toward bringing sanity on the highway thereby reducing road crashes.
He attributed the rising number of road crashes to human, mechanical factors, weather and bad roads.
“If motorists take proper care of their vehicles and obey traffic rules, it would go a long way to reduce road crashes,’’ he said.
According to him, the activities of his officers have also boosted the internally generated revenue (IGR) of the state government.
The director, however, listed lack of sufficient manpower and shortage of patrol vehicles as some of the factors affecting the performance of the organisation.
He, therefore, appealed to the state government to address these challenges for efficient service delivery.
