The signs are more than glaring, what Nigerian road transporters and maybe motorist as a whole should expect anytime soon is the enforcement of the use of speed limiting devices to tackle over-speeding. This process seems to be in top gear as we’ve witnessed various stakeholders forums on this issue (speed limiting device enforcement) in Nigeria held in Abuja and Lagos, which have been spearheaded by the F.R.S.C(federal road safety corps) and government officials.

With all these, it shouldn't come to anyone as a surprise if we wake up one morning to hear that it is now mandatory to install these devices in our vehicles. In the face of the path FRSC has chosen, I want to quickly ask one question; is this really the way out? Another question the people of Nigeria are asking now is whether this could be yet another money-making agenda to further milk Nigerians dry? Nigerians are still yet to recover from the new plate number and new driving license scheme, and now they might have to contend with this.

For now let’s leave the bickering aside and face the areas I feel the FRSC should be channeling their resources and energies to instead of simply laying the full blame -on the spate of road accidents- on Nigerians over-speeding.

More road/traffic signs needed:Rather than the Nigerian government whining about safe driving, the several levels of government should sit up! In one of my many visits to Ghana, I began a road trip from Accra to Kumasi around 11pm using one of their 24hrs bus services.

If there is anything I noticed during this late night drive, it had to be the heavy presence of pertinent road/traffic signs to guide both day and late night drivers; these roads signs are mostly made of reflective objects placed by strategic portions of the road.

But back here in Lagos, Nigeria, it’s a shame we still have to wake up to see trucks stuck along BRT paths and almost all BRT lanes concrete demarcations are shaved almost to the asphalt surface especially at the main entry points.

The simple point I am trying to make here is that government needs to invest more in road signs and other accompanying traffic effects which ideally should form integral components of a complete road design.

What about speed breakers/road cameras? More advanced and developed nations depend on infrastructures like these to punish traffic offenders and help reduce the likelihood of over-speeding on some portions of the road.

What incentives are in place for transport companies with low accident rates? If the FRSC is serious about its safe driving campaign; it won’t hurt anyone if companies with fewer or no crashes pay lower-income taxes and are exempted from some imposed payments and levies. This is an example of what they should be clamouring for which overtime will truly encourage various companies to set up independent safety programmes, better driver welfare and sufficient drivers training which indeed are the root causes of most road accidents incidents.

In conclusion, I’d like to state that government has a responsibility to the people and it shouldn't always be the people being solely responsible for themselves and the government too.
http://autobaseafrica.com/use-of-speed-limiters-the-way-out/

The same Nigerians keeping quiet about this will be screaming blue murder when the chips are down!

Peace Mass Transit Buses has been Using it...YET!

Bossforeva: Peace Mass Transit Buses has been Using it...YET!

Exactly!!!

Immune#1:
The signs are more than glaring, what Nigerian road transporters and maybe motorist as a whole should expect anytime soon is the enforcement of the use of speed limiting devices to tackle over-speeding. This process seems to be in top gear as we’ve witnessed various stakeholders forums on this issue (speed limiting device enforcement) in Nigeria held in Abuja and Lagos, which have been spearheaded by the F.R.S.C(federal road safety corps) and government officials.

With all these, it shouldn't come to anyone as a surprise if we wake up one morning to hear that it is now mandatory to install these devices in our vehicles. In the face of the path FRSC has chosen, I want to quickly ask one question; is this really the way out? Another question the people of Nigeria are asking now is whether this could be yet another money-making agenda to further milk Nigerians dry? Nigerians are still yet to recover from the new plate number and new driving license scheme, and now they might have to contend with this.

For now let’s leave the bickering aside and face the areas I feel the FRSC should be channeling their resources and energies to instead of simply laying the full blame -on the spate of road accidents- on Nigerians over-speeding.

More road/traffic signs needed:Rather than the Nigerian government whining about safe driving, the several levels of government should sit up! In one of my many visits to Ghana, I began a road trip from Accra to Kumasi around 11pm using one of their 24hrs bus services.

If there is anything I noticed during this late night drive, it had to be the heavy presence of pertinent road/traffic signs to guide both day and late night drivers; these roads signs are mostly made of reflective objects placed by strategic portions of the road.

But back here in Lagos, Nigeria, it’s a shame we still have to wake up to see trucks stuck along BRT paths and almost all BRT lanes concrete demarcations are shaved almost to the asphalt surface especially at the main entry points.

The simple point I am trying to make here is that government needs to invest more in road signs and other accompanying traffic effects which ideally should form integral components of a complete road design.

What about speed breakers/road cameras? More advanced and developed nations depend on infrastructures like these to punish traffic offenders and help reduce the likelihood of over-speeding on some portions of the road.

What incentives are in place for transport companies with low accident rates? If the FRSC is serious about its safe driving campaign; it won’t hurt anyone if companies with fewer or no crashes pay lower-income taxes and are exempted from some imposed payments and levies. This is an example of what they should be clamouring for which overtime will truly encourage various companies to set up independent safety programmes, better driver welfare and sufficient drivers training which indeed are the root causes of most road accidents incidents.

In conclusion, I’d like to state that government has a responsibility to the people and it shouldn't always be the people being solely responsible for themselves and the government too.
http://autobaseafrica.com/use-of-speed-limiters-the-way-out/

The issue of road signs is what this government have been overlooking. This is a very important thing they should tackle, rather they are writing Toyota claiming their buses are involved in most accident. Lets say for example someone is driving from Benin to Lagos for the first time. When he gets to sagamu interchange, there is no sign indicating the exit to Lagos, or the exit to Ibadan. Also if manage to get ur way to Lagos Ibadan expressway and u are going into Berger, there's no sign. You will just be driving like a headless chicken not knowing where u are going unless u ask people. Is it not enough that our roads are bad, no street lights on the highways and yet big trucks plying in the night are allowed to have 20 halogen headlights on their trucks. Yes 20.. i counted it. I was was driving along Lokoja expressway around 10pm and I came face to face with this long truck and it had 20 halogen headlamps. about 8 at the top, another 8 at the front grille and 4 below. I almost swerved into the bush because i couldn't see anything. Yet members of the FRSC see these trucks and they can't do anything about it.

^^^^ Lol! @ 20 trucks with 20 halogen headlights. Been there.

In November 2011, i left Lokoja around 8pm, heading to Abuja, with my then 605 V6. It was horrible. In my case, almost all the trucks in Nigeria were on that road that night. As if it wasn't enough, on each of the trucks, the whole front end has headlights all over. I was crawling, it was no longer driving. How i could still drive when i can't see my front. In the whole journey, i was completely blind behind the wheel. To make it clearer, i arrived Abuja at exactly 11:45 pm. A journey that would have lasted 2 and half hours.I even lost a tyre and a wheel that night before i even go to Abaji. A night i won't forget.

As for the topic, i opened a similar topic not quite long, stressing about this speed limiter thing (though about EU). I hope this people are not reading Car Talk to shape policies regarding our roads? Find the discussion in the link below:

https://www.nairaland.com/1421478/eu-plans-fit-all-cars

Even one doing 80 km/h can be pushed into the bush by other vehicles and may end up in the mortuary. I know what it's like when it happened to me. Road accidents is not always about speed.

Ikenna.

FRSC And the Speed Burden
[url]
www.thisdaylive.com/articles/frsc-and-the-speed-burden/159483/[/url]

elektra80:

The issue of road signs is what this government have been overlooking. This is a very important thing they should tackle, rather they are writing Toyota claiming their buses are involved in most accident. Lets say for example someone is driving from Benin to Lagos for the first time. When he gets to sagamu interchange, there is no sign indicating the exit to Lagos, or the exit to Ibadan. Also if manage to get ur way to Lagos Ibadan expressway and u are going into Berger, there's no sign. You will just be driving like a headless chicken not knowing where u are going unless u ask people. Is it not enough that our roads are bad, no street lights on the highways and yet big trucks plying in the night are allowed to have 20 halogen headlights on their trucks. Yes 20.. i counted it. I was was driving along Lokoja expressway around 10pm and I came face to face with this long truck and it had 20 halogen headlamps. about 8 at the top, another 8 at the front grille and 4 below. I almost swerved into the bush because i couldn't see anything. Yet members of the FRSC see these trucks and they can't do anything about it.

Another consequence negligence on the part of FRSC;instead of spending say #30k to lobby for more reflective road signs, they will happily spend that same amount to organize forums upon forums which will in the end create yet another source of income............that's if we allow such.

Raise the Speed Limit!

In the wide open plains of central Texas, a new addition to State Highway 130 opened for business this week with a compelling marketing hook: Its speed limit of 85 MPH is the highest in America. The 41-mile toll road connects Seguin to Mustang Ridge. The former is a distant exurb of San Antonio that calls itself “the pecan capital of the world.” The latter, population 861, is a notorious speed trap. So if you’ve been dying to go nowhere fast, it just got a tiny bit easier. At 85 MPH, the journey between these two burgs takes just 28 minutes and 56 seconds.
At 65 MPH, the trip would take almost nine full minutes longer—an eternity in an era when we have come to expect instant access to everything. Thus, the new 85 MPH limit is both an attempt to keep small towns relevant in the face of increasing urbanization, and also an acknowledgement of how people actually drive when there are endless miles to traverse and few natural impediments to higher rates of travel. As long ago as 1954, a Texas law enforcement officer told The New York Times that “it was nothing unusual to see strings of cars traveling at 90 to 100 miles an hour” on some Texas roads.

There were 32,310 traffic fatalities in 2011, the fewest there have been since 1949. More importantly, fatality rates per 100 million vehicle miles traveled have dropped substantially over the years, falling from 24.09 in 1921 to 1.09 in 2011. In addition, while interstate highway speed limits have risen since Congress repealed all federally imposed speed limits in 1995, fatalities categorized as “speeding-related” by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have declined since then. Specifically, there were 13,414 speeding-related fatalities in 1995 and 10,591 in 2011. Of the 10,591 speeding-related fatalities in 2011, just 964 occurred on interstate highways with speed limits “over 55 MPH.”

So even as critics contend that an 85 MPH speed limit will increase fatalities, it’s no surprise that Texas is implementing the higher limit: Driving in America has never been safer than it is now.

And if State Highway 130 proves popular with motorists, expect other states to increase their top speed limits too. Seguin and Mustang Ridge aren’t the only small towns that would like to be a few minutes closer to larger metro regions that aggregate jobs, schools, and other opportunities.

But is Texas’s bold speed limit move bold enough? In one of the most convincing proofs ever that the medium is the message, the speed limit signs of the early 20th century quickly solidified the notion that a single designated top speed could adequately govern traffic in a given area regardless of all other factors—not because this was in any way logical, but rather because that’s what was technologically and economically feasible at the time. In the early 1900s, it would have been costly and time-consuming to create signs that changed in accordance with congestion levels, road surface conditions, and the current state of the weather.

Now, however, we have signs that can display whatever limit is most appropriate to the current conditions. More importantly, we have the ability to closely monitor how motorists actually drive specific roads as conditions change—and we can use that information to determine the most appropriate speed limits. Imagine, for example, a highway where the speed limit bumps up to 85 MPH on days when it’s sunny and windless and there are few cars on the road. Or drops down to 55 MPH on Saturday nights between midnight and 3 AM, because that’s when a high number of fatal accidents occur.

Next, imagine that the speed limit on that highway is designed to encourage positive behavior rather than penalize bad behavior. In June 2012, NPR reported that researchers funded in part by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted a test in which they offered drivers a weekly $25 reward to comply with speed limits. Every time drivers exceeded a posted speed limit by five to eight miles per hour, they lost 3 cents from their potential prize money. Every time they exceeded a posted speed limit by nine or more miles per hour, they lost six cents. “We found that the incentive system was incredibly effective in getting drivers to reduce their speeding,” NHTSA researcher Ian Reagan told NPR.

Toll roads—like State Highway 130 in Texas—would make ideal labs for further experimentation. With users already paying mileage fees for access, compliance incentives could come in the form of discounts rather than explicit payments. In the case of State Highway 130, passenger cars and pickup trucks must pay 15 cents a mile to access the road. For daily commuters, such charges can add up quickly—so much so that, say, a 12-cent per mile discount rate for users who faithfully observe the speed limit might prove compelling. Or perhaps rather than a discount, a portion of the road’s weekly usage fees could be set aside for a lottery that only the non-speeders would be eligible for.

In either scenario, the increasingly omniscient surveillance technologies that are already being deployed on roadways across the U.S. no longer seem quite so unilaterally oppressive. Motorists are closely monitored, but in a way that potentially benefits rather than penalizes them. Combine that with speed limits that are nuanced, flexible, and determined by how motorists are actually using roads under variable conditions and suddenly we’d have speed limits that no longer looked quite so much like relics from the Model T era.

Greg Beato is a contributing editor of Reason magazine.

Source: http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/25/raise-the-speed-limit

The rules in Kenya and Zambia and South Africa do not apply to private vehicles.

In Kenya, the rules apply only to matatus and other vehicles that serve the public. The title of the Kenyan Law is instructive: The Traffic Act—Speed Governor for Public Service and Commercial Vehicles .See a link to the law here: http://kenyalaw.org/kl/index.php?id=4046 . But see also http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/money/Dalcom-Enterprises-Omata-Speed-Governors/-/435440/2268092/-/o81kplz/-/index.html

In Zambia, it applies to all long distance public service vehicles, here is a link to the relevant law: http://www.zambialii.org/zm/legislation/statutory-instrument/2006/19

In South Africa, here is a link that discusses the issue: http://www.wheels24.co.za/News/New-SA-road-rules-Speed-limiters-for-taxis-20141111. Here is a link to the law: http://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/2914/f6dd81eb1bd44979b0974a0eb6e96a52.pdf. As you can see, the law is very new. Which means either of 2 things, that a fresh law on the subject matter has just been enacted or a previous one repealed. I have not had the time to confirm which is the case.

In Uganda, here are links that address the issue of what obtains there:http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/641971-city-drivers-get-new-speed-limits.html, http://www.ulii.org/ug/legislation/statutory-instrument/47-0 and http://www.ulii.org/ug/legislation/statutory-instrument/59-1

In Tanzania, here is what obtains: http://www.thisday.co.tz/?l=10449. Infact, I pity them 50Km/hour? And the law: http://www.judiciary.go.tz/judiciary/admin/files/legislations/The_Road_Traffic.pdf. And a discussion of what is going on there: http://nao.go.tz/?wpfb_dl=77 and http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2013/country_profiles/united_republic_of_tanzania.pdf

So far in Africa, Uganda has, Kenya has, South Africa has, Zambia has, Has Nigeria done so ( as far as the law books are concerned)?

I am yet to conduct research but I doubt that even the country in which the WHO has its headquarters has implemented speed limiters on private and public vehicles.

I did however find research that suggests that at least 33 countries have implemented speed limit devices on heavy duty trucks. Here is the link if you are interested in the details: https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/tp-tp14810-menu-369.htm

Even more interesting would be a research on how many of the 194 member countries of the WHO are implementing this policy of speed limiting devices as opposed to speed limits in general, and then to speed limit devices on public vehicles (that can be further broken down into the types of public vehicles e.g., buses and trucks and tankers) and to private vehicles.

I ran a search with the term "speed limit devices" on the WHO website and while I saw speed limits, I did not see speed limit devices. Of course I did not do a very thorough search, as I was rather busy. But I will find the time to do so

Thankfully, given the limited resources at the disposal of the FRSC, they are starting with speed limiters for heavy duty trucks and things like that see this link http://www.channelstv.com/2014/11/19/frsc-to-introduce-speed-governor-june-1-2015/

I have no statistics to back it up but I strongly suspect that heavy duty trucks, luxurious buses and other smaller buses cause more carnage on the road than private vehicles. Make them leave us alone Ooooo!

I stand to be corrected. I state the facts as I think them to be but will surrender to superior facts if they can be provided and I find them to be so!

Let me close with this food for thought which contains research conducted by Professor Christo Bester and US student MS Marais which was presented at a recent Southern African Transport Conference, held in Pretoria. : http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/different-speed-limits-for-buses-trucks-and-cars-not-enforced-research-study-2012-07-19

But see also the speed limit law in Kenya suffered a setback:http://www.24tanzania.net/kenya-high-court-stops-speed-limit-law-vehicle-inspection/