The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) says it will work with religious bodies, construction companies and Federal Ministry of Works to manage traffic on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The Corps Marshal of FRSC, Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, said this while inspecting the ongoing rehabilitation of the expressway.
“We are directing religious organisations along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to please forward their own programmes from now to December to the FRSC.
“This will enable us to work along with the construction companies and Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing so that we can plan for the traffic flow.
“When there are religious programmes, there is increase in traffic density and this is one of the causes of the gridlock.
“We need to put this into the planning and hand it over to the construction company, it is very critical.
“It is our own responsibility to ensure total compliance and plan with the construction company.’’
Oyeyemi, who met with representatives of both Julius Berger and Reynolds Construction Company yards, said the purpose of the visit was to collaborate with them to ensure safety standards are maintained.
“This is more of a routine visit; earlier on, I had detailed two teams to come here.
“When construction of this magnitude is going on, when it comes to road safety audit, it’s one of the key responsibilities of the FRSC pre construction, during construction and post construction.
“We need to collaborate with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works & Housing as stated by the Acts and also to ensure the construction companies complied with the safety standards as per the highway code and the Federal Highway Act.’’
The corps marshal, who urged both construction companies to use appropriate road signs at night to reduce crashes, added that the corps would support them to achieve its mandate of safer work zone.
“I have seen relative improvement, but there is still room for improvement and we are going to support them.
“We are going to give them some signage from our own production plant and the rest we compel them to display.
“So before the end of the month we expect that all the construction areas would have been fortified with the appropriate roads signs.
“When you are talking about safety of lives, we must ensure that especially at night the signs must be reflective as per the international Geneva and Vienna conventions.
“We must ensure that people travelling at night are well protected because most of the crashes on this road since the construction started occur at night due to the absence of adequate signs.
“The construction areas must be well illuminated overnight so that drivers and other road users will be aware.’’
He said the commission would sustain its existing cooperation with the construction companies to ensure compliance on the use of signage.
“I have deployed more vehicles; I have 29 patrol vehicles, ambulances and heavy-duty recovery vehicles.
“About 225 personnel have been redeployed again today, and I am going to do more to ensure that we fortify this road.
“We should have zero crash when construction is going on; crashes should not be occurring.’’
Oyeyemi, therefore, advised road users who ply the expressway to plan their journey in order to avoid being trapped in occasional gridlocks in the ongoing rehabilitation.
He said the commission had directed the construction companies to reduce the number of U-turns along the stretch of the road to check motorists who had formed the habit of driving against traffic.
“You cannot spend two and a half hours from Lagos to Ibadan, or Lagos-Sagamu, Sagamu to Ibadan; you need to re-plan your journey.
“That is why we’ve directed that they should reduce the u-turns to maybe two from Lagos to Sagamu so that people will not be driving against traffic.’’
Discussion about this post