Following an order by Nyesome Wike, the Minister of Works, asking for the removal of Speed Breakers or Road Bumps on the highways, Jide Owatunmise, Registrar/Chief Executive,
Professional Driving and Safety Academy, wrote to Daily Independent to give the following conditions for the order to serve the public good in terms of safety;
He said, research revealed that most of the Bumps were put in those places because of the excessive speed of Drivers, leading to the incessant loss of lives.
Ironically, the speed Bumps have also caused damages to Vehicles and loss of lives due to the ignorance of the the Drivers of the presence of those Bumps.
There must be Traffic Sign to indicate the presence of Speed Bump so that Drivers can safely slow down before getting to the Bump. The Speed Bumps on Obajana – Kabba road has no single Traffic Sign to alert Drivers of the Bumps ahead.
The only sign is the Concrete block placed on the side of each Bump, not a warning before the Bump. The concrete blocks on the Bumps are not painted nor marked to make them visible from afar before getting there.
The Bumps were not marked with paint for easy identification from afar. The absence of these signs and markings have led to many accidents, loss of lives and valuable properties on the Obajana – Kabba road and nothing has been done to correct these lapses.
Towards the Kabba end of the road, the Bump at the slope near a Police checkpoint was wrongly positioned. Bumps must not be located on a slope. This has caused many accidents and loss of lives.
A particular Driver lost control of his bus when he suddenly came across one of these bumps, colliding with it the bus somersaulted and caught fire with no passenger saved.
Yet, the Bump has not been removed from there till now. This is the situation in many parts of Nigeria as at today.
Bumps started springing up because of the failure of the Government to ensure relevant traffic signs and road markings, particularly Speed limit signs are installed at appropriate locations.
Quality Driver Education in Driving Schools would lead to the arrest and prosecution of violators of speed limits. It is also a big surprise that the Government Agencies at the Federal and State levels do not understand the relevance of Derestriction signs. Every speed limit Sign must be followed by a Derestriction Sign. This has never been done anywhere in Nigeria.
The relevant Government Agencies must always monitor the roads and road infrastructure to know and correct the lapses before they start causing loss of lives and properties.
The Bumps near Schools, Markets, Bus Stops, Hospitals, busy shopping malls should not be removed even after installing the relevant traffic signs and road markings in such areas. The relevant Government MDAs should also specify through Executive order or Memo, what distance must be between one Speed Bump and the order.
It must also be specified, the type of Bumps that can be installed on the roads. The way some Bumps were constructed has caused a lot of damage to vehicles and vehicle Occupants.
With the evolution of Technology, there is a need to complement the Traffic Signs and Road Markings with functional CCTV Camera to ease arrest and prosecution of Violators of the Traffic Signs and Road Markings.
The order given by the Minister of Works that the Speed Bumps of all Highways be removed is good and necessary because of the excesses of the people installing the speed Bumps but the points I specify above should be taken into consideration so as to avoid causing more problems than those the Minister wants to solve.
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