End time tins

it is rather unfortunate we lost skulls of lives as a result of the fatal accident, the deed has been done,may the soul of the departed rest in peace

ratiken:

You were so quick to blame bad roads and the government when you weren't told on the write-up that bad road was the cause.

Even if the entire roads in this country gets fixed, we need a paradigm shift to drive safely to avoid these incidents.

RIP to the dead.

Across the bridge there is no more sorrow
Across the bridge there is no more pain
We will rejoice across the river
Where will never be unhappy again.

God pls help us count our days on earth so we may nt sin against you. RIP

smartchoice: oh my Goodness....what kind of hot death is this?

May all viewing never enter any doomed vehicle in Jesus name.

Only those viewing? How about those that didn't read this thread? Or even not on Nairaland.

Pack your hypocritical prayers waka comot.

GodMode:

nope... they don't..... cos if they were working.... there would be lots of high speed chases and ticketing... but there is no ticketing in Nigeria...

There are really no traffic laws in Nigeria and a 2year old can get a non-restricted drivers license. There is no database to tie car registration to drivers license number and address.

Also, where are the road infrastructures? no yield sign, max speed, stop sign, merge sign e.t.c even if they were there, people don't understand what it means. Most Nigerian drivers don't know what right of way means. And DUI is big too. A visit to the park, and you meet opa eyin and ogogoro sellers.

On my last trip to naija,I almost got hit by a keke napep on a zebra crossing very close to the governors office.
I laugh when people shout over speeding is the cause of accident in Nigeria when roads don't even have designed speed limit.

Nigeria still has a loooong way to go.

cold: Truly sad and tragic.Are we to assume these RCCG members who just met their gruesome demise failed to complete the 100 day fasting? Just thinking

so everyone that didnt fast or finish the fast wud encounter sumtin bad?only God can answer that one, stop assuming!

jimmy4x:
Don't blame this on Nigerian roads please, I drive on that road, going from ife to Erin ijesha and coming back, the road is very good, I can say that, could be the driver's fault, too much speed or something else.
But that Ife - Ilesha express road is very very good, still used the road recently sef.
May their souls RIP

What is your definition of a good road, roads without potholes abi. Do you also know driving too slow can cause accident by obstructing traffic. On that road you mentioned. Some drivers are driving 100km/hr, some are driving 50Km/hr, some 80km/hr, chaotic driving.

There are no road controls...Drivers driving at various speed is a recipe for accident. Also, influx of cars with miles/hour on their gauge is a big problem too. People can't tell the difference between miles and kilometers. licensing in Nigeria and the road infrastructure controls(in fact, controls are nonexistent) are really messed up.

I hope the new FRSC boss steps up his game, at least he is a career officer unlike the former that got the top post by appointment despite the fact that he knows nothing about transportation engineering and planning.

d phone number of one of my staff that i granted permission to attend the programme has not being available up till now. she entered motor this morning to abuja. i pray that she is safe.

Na wa o, may God grant them eternal rest

kamo2930yahoo: so everyone that didnt fast or finish the fast wud encounter sumtin bad?only God can answer that one, stop assuming!

Well Adeboye said all those who completed the 100 day fasting will not contract the ebola virus.The corollary therefore, is that those who didn't may either contract it or meet some other horrible fate.Hence my question.Yeah god indeed..sigh

jimmy4x:
Yea, it's a dual carriageway

^^^^
It is interesting that two other posters on this thread dispute your assertion about the road being in good shape. Anyway, I will take your point as given.

Something which has been lost on so many posters here (and yet highlighted by some others) is that there are many factors which are important for road safety. The physical condition of the road is one. The design of the road is another. The presence of functional road signs is another. The effectiveness of law enforcement is another. And so on.

These factors must all be in sync for the system to work. That is the message I am trying to get across.


P.S. Correct me if I am wrong but the dual carriage way begins from Ibadan, goes through Ife and other small towns and eventually ends before Akure? From that point onward, if i remember correctly, it is a single lane carriage way all the way to Okene (if you are headed in that direction). With the volume of traffic on that entire stretch and beyond, nothing but a dual carriage way is acceptable.

saxywale:

Also, influx of cars with miles/hour on their gauge is a big problem too. People can't tell the difference between miles and kilometers.

^^^^That's a key point you mention here. I didn't even think of that.

jawjaw1:

You are absolutely spot on. The average driver is the same all over the world. We would be in a hurry to get anywhere at neck breaking speed or detest driving at 50km/h when the road is free. The huge difference between the safety on Nigerian roads and roads in developed countries is the control. The police making intercity and highway patrols and aided with speed scanners and road side cameras provides the absolute control that prevents drivers from speeding to their deaths and causing the death of others.

For drivers in these parts of the world, the fear of a speeding ticket or demerit points on your licence is the beginning of wisdom. A speeding ticket can wipe away your savings or hard earnings in a day. The demerit points show on your driving abstract (driving record) and can deny you job oppurtunities. If the demerit points accumulate, your licence can be suspended and if you are caught driving without licence you could go to jail.

Its that simple, CONTROL is the answer. If you have an agency that adequately exercises control of driving behaviour on the roads all these needless accidents and deaths will reduce to the bearest minimum. The blame finally falls on government to build, fund and train such an agency. FULLSTOP.

^^^^
You have said it all. There isn't much more to add.

poiZon:








also our drivers are worst than d govt we mistakenly vote into power, wetin him dey drive go, na mecca abi jerusalem. road bad dem still dey drive at 120 - 150km/h. all d same rest in piss

how did u know he was driving at that speed? i didn't see it reported here. some times accidents are not products of speed but carelessness including being drunk, not realizing when to take a rest,trying to cover 10 trips a day which makes them sleep on the wheels etc.

Those Toyota buses are not safe at all for that use as transportation of people.

RIP to the dead and wish the living good recovery.

everybody,keeps talking bout the road..this is over-speeding.

I witnessed so many road accidents on my way from Lagos to Asaba,yesterday.. the roads were blocked,drivers running to meet up and return the buses to their managers,even the one that carried us..thank God we got to our destination

It was hell,if you travelled to or from Lagos yesterday..I wonder the kind of convention RCCG were holding..blocked the whole road.

RIP to the dead...thank God I had a safe journey to akure

...May God grant dem eternal rest n give their families d fortitude to bear deir irreparable losses...Its really a sad news,but God knows best

stevecrun: everybody,keeps talking bout the road..this is over-speeding.

I witnessed so many road accidents on my way from Lagos to Asaba,yesterday.. the roads were blocked,drivers running to meet up and return the buses to their managers,even the one that carried us..thank God we got to our destination

It was hell,if you travelled to or from Lagos yesterday..I wonder the kind of convention RCCG were holding..blocked the whole road.

Hmmm, nawa ooo..

VolvoS60:

This is heartbreaking.

I am fed up with saying RIP with each fresh calamity.

I refuse to believe that the quality of our lives cannot improve. Nigerian roads have been slaughter slabs for how long? 10? 20? 40? 50 years? Don't we deserve better? These people had families and loved ones.

This harvest of death is totally avoidable.

We must choose governments that fear us (we the people) enough to live up to their responsibilities or these needless deaths will continue.

The choice is ours.

stop the blame on Govt most drivers drive like animals on the road

BigBashiru: Why are you calling on God and God to have mercy. And why are you blaming the Govt? Nigerians sef. Irresponsible drivers are responsible FIRST. Though the roads are bad, it is the responsibility of drivers to drive responsibly and obey rules.

I do not know the exact circumstances of this incident but I am calling on Nigerians to take responsibility for their lives, quit blaming the government and ask God to help then act responsibly not after praying you are doing 160km/hr and believe "God will help his people"

^^^^
If YOU drive responsibly and other drivers do not, what happens? If YOU drive sensibly and other drivers do not, and they endanger your life where do you get recourse?

Can you see why you need government? You need the government to protect you from the reckless behaviour and decisions of others in the use of a public good i.e. the highway.

As I said in my other posts, it is the fear of punishment that reins in the craziness of drivers in developed countries. Drivers in these places would drive recklessly if they could get away with it. But that's the whole point: they can't get away with it. The government, acting on behalf of the people who elected it, makes sure of this.

I hope you read me now.

VolvoS60:

^^^^
You have said it all. There isn't much more to add.

Hold on VolvoS60, there is still one more thing to add. I've gone through your posts on this thread and you've made very good points. I want to commend you for passing across your messages without insulting others. Regulatory failure is one of the biggest factors affecting our development in Nigeria. I agree with you. I know you agreed with some other people that paradigm shift for drivers is important but you don't feel, from your several posts, that it's as strong as government failure( that may be my assumption going through your posts though because you stressed govt failure more than others).
I'm very interested in this discussion because I had an accident on Nigeria road just recently that I had to be flown outside the country for better treatment. Thank God I'm fine now. My point is I don't want you to think less of other points raised by other people here. To me, all of you have made very good arguments on both sides and all should be ignored. I always ask people anytime they blame government that; who are the governments?. Where did those people come from before they got to power?. Who "elected" them into power?. I know you'll agree with me that the so-called government are us (our brothers,friends,family members and accomplices). They grew up among us and they rose to power because we allowed them and supported them. All of us have failed the country. I mean it!. All of us one way or the other. We have no moral value anymore. Corruption is the other of the day. We celebrate mediocrity. Pastors and imams organize prayers and thanksgivings for the ones that have "arrived" among us not caring to know how they "arrived". Parents don't even care how the children "made it" anymore. Parents teach their children how to steal WAEC questions and teach them lies from day one. Imagine a parent telling her child to tell a visitor that she's not around when she's actually inside. What do you expect that child to become in life?.
There are countless fundamental reasons why we are the way we are in Nigeria and nothing is going to change soon unless miracle happens. I'm not that religious to expect God to intervene in our issues and I hate people mentioning God in Nigeria every time but the rate at which Nigeria is degenerating makes me wonder if we are humans. We are richly blessed with everything but still couldn't advance.
Look at the political situation of things in Nigeria, who among us even with good intentions can get to power without dining with the people that want the status quo to remain. Our mentality has been bastardized to the extent that we see educated people praising "performing" governors that " at least he's doing something even he embezzles the rest". Oh my!. Nigeria's case is the more you look, the less you see. So, how do you get political wills to deal with these issues. I think our challenges are multifaceted and can be surmounted. How?. It takes all of us to figure it out and my approach to this discussion is always from the bottom up and not from the top to bottom. It starts from us. The people in power grew up among us. We celebrate them to their faces and denied them behind their back. We "assisted" to rig elections and to get to power. A contestant cannot steal all the ballot boxes by himself across the nations!. They will return to us at the expiration of their tenures and we'll send another person there to continue. All of us are just waiting for our own opportunities in Nigeria. We are wonderful creatures. We have several laws that have been made but implementation is one of our problems. The FRSC staff are our husbands, wives, family members. They start building houses within 3 months of getting jobs and we don't raise eyebrows. How did they make the money?. Who will then regulate?. Who are the governments?. Who will you report to that an officer collects bribes?. Police?. Your guess is as good as mine. But guess what, Obj, Jonathan, IG, Chidoka will not come down from Abuja to look for erring officers. I know I keep rambling but I love Nigeria a lot and I want things to work for her but we Nigerians, including you and I don't. We are too selfish. We are corrupt, we steal and embezzle. We represent everything that can go wrong. We are only talking about agency that lead to direct death like FRSC now. How about Custom?. I developed high blood pressure dealing with them. Police?. Civil servants in various ministries and departments?. Etc. How do we make things work?. We are all Nigerians and we are the cause of the problems. Americans and Europeans won't do it for us, they can't even survive in the system if they come. We are the government, they are our kinsmen and tribesmen. Nothing will change unless we change ourselves. It starts from you and I. How can you make it in this society without giving or taking bribe?. Without greasing people's palms?. The system is designed by us for people to fail unless you "play along". How many rich people do we have in Nigeria without government patronage?. Don't let me derail to another thing. I comment here because I just had an accident on Nigeria road myself. No first aid, nothing. I could have died. Oh!, I forgot to mention that I was taken out of the car by a Good Samaritan and we met FRSC staff on the way. He stopped and told them to take me to the hospital but they refused. Instead they went to secure the wrecked vehicle. They are Nigerians and few of them in their vehicle. They'll not get punished even if I report because I'm not a Jonathan of this world.
Can the change come by concentrating everything in Abuja?. Can we make good argument for devolution of power?. How do we reduce corruption that has eaten deep into anything Nigeria?. Can we regulate better if we have state, LG or city FRSC instead of Federal?. How about the process of issuing drivers' license?. Of inspection vehicles by VIO?. Can we change who we are for better?. With all the regulatory laws in the book, things will still remain the same if we don't have attitudinal change. If we are not determined to make Nigeria work. Please let's start from bottom up, from who we are. One person at a time. What do you think?. I'm here to learn more.

akeweje:
Hold on VolvoS60, there is still one more thing to add. I've gone through your posts on this thread and you've made very good points. I want to commend you for passing across your messages without insulting others. Regulatory failure is one of the biggest factors affecting our development in Nigeria. I agree with you. I know you agreed with some other people that paradigm shift for drivers is important but you don't feel, from your several posts, that it's as strong as government failure( that may be my assumption going through your posts though because you stressed govt failure more than others).

^^^^
Good to hear you are doing fine. Wish you a full and complete recovery and many more years of trouble free motoring.

I didn't quote your entire post up here so that it wouldn't take up too much space (but I read every word). Where do I start? I will start by saying that I have been around for quite a while - i threw in a reference to the FRSC's glory days to let others know that I've seen quite a bit. I started learning how to drive (far too early I must admit) in 1988 but I was too young to get a driver's licence then, so I had to wait a few years before taking my driving test. (Which I promptly failed but that's a story for some other time).

I still remember that I was the odd man out among my peers because I was the only one who drove with a seatbelt. (My father always drove with a seatbelt and insisted that my siblings and I do the same. But he took the time to explain why - he mentioned what seat belt pre-tensioners do, how the belt prevents you from smashing your chest against the steering wheel in a collision, etc.). I still remember that it was years after I had started driving with a belt that the FRSC made it compulsory to do so. I still remember the resistance from the general public and the warnings by the FRSC for non-compliance. But eventually, the motoring public bought into the idea and today, most drivers wear their belts.

Why this history lesson? Simply to prove that people respond to incentives, rewards and penalties. It is the way of the world - it always has been and always will be. Steer people in the right direction by appropriately applying rewards, penalties and incentives AND they will respond. Distort the reward system and watch things break down.

I do not believe there is any competition or tension between regulatory effectiveness and a shift in paradigms/behavioural patterns. Not at all. I consider them to be complementary. However, I think regulation requires more attention because it is the driver for the so-called paradigm shift one of the other posters spoke about so disingenuously. As I asked earlier: how will this paradigm shift take place? On its own? Of course not. A change in behavioural patterns will come only through a mixture of education AND the proper application of rewards and penalties. And that sir, is a government responsibility, FULL STOP. And why is it a government responsibility?

It is a government responsibility because roads are public goods.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me repeat what I said earlier about drivers in developed countries where the system works. Most of these drivers would love to routinely drive at 500km/hr on the highways if they could do so without any consequences. But they can't. The system will chew them up and spit them out if they are caught breaking the speed limit and/or causing death or injury to others - we are talking of heavy fines, life driving bans, suspended sentences or jail time. And motorists in these countries know that the law and its enforcers are out there waiting for them to put one foot wrong. That is where the difference lies.

You spoke at length about Nigeria's very serious problems and I must admit that we could be here for the next 100 days and we still wouldn't have finished listing them. Where I do agree with you is that we (and by we I mean all Nigerians) have refused to take responsibility for the disaster we have become and how to solve it. If you go through my posts on this thread (and other threads over the past few years) I have always stressed the importance of Nigerians holding their leaders accountable. It is a thing of great sorrow to me that millions of Nigerians do not have a personal understanding of what the Social Contract is and what it truly means. At every opportunity I tell people that they have the power to change their quality of life if they choose their leaders wisely and hold them accountable. A poster on another thread put it beautifully - he/she said 'Nigerians are in jail but they don't know they have the keys'.

I do not know why Nigerians do not treat their political choices with the seriousness such choices require. Too many Nigerians cannot be bothered to vote. Or when they do vote, they spend as much time researching their voting choices as they would on which outfit to wear to the next meaningless party/social event. Or when they vote and their votes are stolen (or their choice is subverted in some other shape or form), they make some feeble, halfhearted motions of resistance. When the inevitable outcome of poor governance is then made manifest, Nigerians spend hours, weeks and years complaining about the poor choices THEY made. Is this the mark of a serious people?

You spoke at length about the breakdown in our value system, mores and social fabric. The solution is to choose leaders who will restore faith and put this house back together again. But we the people have to do the hard work of choosing wisely and that is where we have proved, time and time again to be lazy, unfocused, ignorant and stupid. Nobody is going to make that leadership choice for us. As we make our bed so we shall lie on it.

I will dispense with the generalities and get down to specifics. Nigeria has very serious structural problems. She is a federation in name only. Some of her laws such as the Land Use Act belong to the last century. There is no justification for the so-called security votes commanded by governors - this is nothing more than a slush fund, full stop. Elected Nigerian public officials as a matter of national security should be required by law to declare their assets publicly to the media - the current charade with the Code of Conduct Bureau MUST stop. There must be FULL implementation of all the provisions of white papers such as the Uwais Report on electoral reform. For our own survival we must build our institutions - we need strong institutions and not strong people. I could go on and on.

Have we as Nigerians (the elite in particular) made any of these things campaign issues which potential candidates MUST address to our satisfaction? No we have not. Do we intend to? Your guess is as good as mine.

VolvoS60:

This is heartbreaking.

I am fed up with saying RIP with each fresh calamity.

I refuse to believe that the quality of our lives cannot improve. Nigerian roads have been slaughter slabs for how long? 10? 20? 40? 50 years? Don't we deserve better? These people had families and loved ones.

This harvest of death is totally avoidable.

We must choose governments that fear us (we the people) enough to live up to their responsibilities or these needless deaths will continue.

The choice is ours.

Accident happend all over the world day in day out , not only in Nigeria dude .. Quick recovery to injured ones and RIP to dead ones ..

God have mercy... Our government is culpable...

I WAS INVOLVED IN A GHASTLY ACC ALONG THE SAME ROUTE THIS YEAR JANUARY,AND THE PAIN & DIFFICULTY I WENT THRU IS WHAT YOU CAN'T EVEN WISH UR ENEMY.RIP TO THOSE WHO DIED,AND QUICK RECOVERY TO THOSE WHO SURVIVED.