Are The Penalties For  Traffic Infractions Adequate

I once x-rayed punishment accruable to traffic offenders for infractions committed as listed in the offences booklet as provided by the National Road Traffic Regulations, 2012. My position, which has not changed, was that the listed penalties were too lame to deter offenders from what I often refer to as irresponsible driving.

Today, I am compelled to again look at this from a different perspective based on certain developments in some clime and also based on fatality cases being recorded across our roads and the need to tame road users responsible for such avoidable crashes as well as deaths and injuries.

Before I do, I wish to know if you followed the trend of road traffic crashes during the just concluded Eid El Kabir Sallah Celebrations. Did you follow the tragedy that befell the nation during the celebration? If you didn’t, please permit me to refresh your memory with the details of the tragic crashes which occurred.

There were two major crashes. They occurred along the Kabba-Ayere road and Ore-Benin road on 29 and 27 June, 2023. A total of 14 lives were lost as a result of these two crashes. Let me focus on the most tragic in terms of the numbers killed, as well as the number of vehicles involved.

According to reports, the Ore-Benin crash occurred due to the brake failure of a Dangote company truck which crashed onto an Ore-Benin bound bus killing almost all the occupants. The multiple crash also involved a Rio car with a death toll that involved innocent children.

After the crash, there was public outcry. This was not the first crash during any of this year’s festivities. Neither is this the first fatal crash recorded this year. During the Easter celebration, there were three avoidable crashes that occurred at Garaku, Abakaliki, as well as at Ogoja. A total of thirty five lives were lost in those crashes.

The causative factor behind these crashes during the Easter celebration as usual were excessive speeding, loss of control as well as driving against traffic. The story during the Eid El Kabir Sallah celebration was neither different. Although reports claimed that brake failure was responsible, speed was not excluded as the death toll and impact was a function of the speed the vehicles were at before the crash.

I don’t know if you have been a victim or if your loved one has been. I know I have lost friends, colleagues, and loved ones. The irony is that whenever these fatal crashes occur, rarely do you hear of appropriate punitive measures against the responsible driver. Let us take the case of the recent crash. The best that would happen would be some insignificant compensation paid to the families of the deceased. But in actual fact, most crashes resulting in deaths or disabilities are unpunished.

This I hope and pray might stop soon. The current helmsman of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Dauda Ali Biu is an advocate for appropriate punishment for drivers whose irresponsible driving mannerisms results in the death of others. He has since initiated a collaboration to prosecute such drivers while at the same time pursuing a road traffic victim’s compensation bill which hopefully will instill some level of sanity in road usage in different fronts.

First, this strategy will tame drivers whether private or commercial who believe that the available law is a bit docile in addressing bad driving behaviour resulting in deaths and serious injuries. Secondly employers of drivers who hitherto adopted a shabby approach in driver recruitment will henceforth exercise great caution on who is employed as a driver whether for domestic needs or for corporate engagement.

As an interested party, I am a supporter of stringent punishment for traffic infractions as well as stricter punishment for drivers whose actions result in the death of road users or their physical disability. This explains why I was excited when the Establishment Act of the Federal Road Safety Corps 2007 hit the ground.

Specifically, my interest was in the provision contained in the Act where the penalty for causing the death or disability of anyone was a jail term of not exceeding seven years. For clarity, let me quote the sections verbatim to refresh your minds. Section 20, Part 111-Offences and Miscellaneous Provisions, states “A person who causes the death of another person by the driving of a motor vehicle on a highway dangerously or recklessly shall be guilty of an offence and be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.”

I do not know how many drivers have been handed this heavy punishment for causing the death of another. But while you ponder on this puzzle, please indulge me to break down a couple of these traffic infractions and penalties so you would appreciate my hard-line stance. Speeding which is regarded worldwide as the biggest causative factor in a crash is captured as a traffic offence. Yet despite the revelation that speed is the number one killer, it carries a paltry sum of ten thousand naira for exceeding approved speed.

Now you understand why people indulge in this craze despite the report by the World Health Organisation and the World Bank. The report notes that an increase in average speed is directly related both to the likelihood of a crash occurring and to the severity of the consequences of the crash. For example, every one percent increase in mean speed, it notes, produces a four percent increase in the fatal crash risk and a three percent increase in the serious crash risk.

It further states that the death risk for pedestrians hit by car front rises rapidly; 4.5 times from 50 km/h to 65 km/h. In car-to-car side impacts, the fatality risk for car occupants is 85 percent at 65 km/h. The next should be of utmost interest to my friends whose pastime is to drive under the influence as well as speeding at the same time.

The report also identifies the place of those who indulge in driving under the influence of alcohol and other psychoactive substances. Driving under the influence of alcohol and any psychoactive substance or drug increases the risk of a crash that results in death or serious injuries. In the case of drink-driving, the risk of a road traffic crash starts at low levels of Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) and increases significantly when the driver’s BAC is equal to 0.04 g/dl. If this infraction is this dangerous, why then is the penalty just five thousand naira.

In the case of drug-driving, the risk of incurring a road traffic crash is increased to differing degrees depending on the psychoactive drug used. For example, the risk of a fatal crash occurring among those who have used amphetamines is about 5 times the risk of someone who hasn’t. With this kind of a risk, the penalty is lumped up with drink-driving with the same fine as punishment.