FRSC, Crying More Than The Bereaved?

Government must resist the urge to continue to make obnoxious laws that are insensitive to the plight of the people; and laws that are clearly unenforceable besides their propensity to provide veritable avenues for bribe collection by overzealous enforcers. If all vehicles with expired tires were to be impounded, FRSC would be virtually left with no time for thorough safety checks on other parts; and we would have to devote a substantial part of our annual budgets to providing parking lots for impounded vehicles. Is that what we want?

By Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan

This piece begins with a testimony titled, “The many tires I have seen”. Events leading to the testimony span over a 37-year period, during which I owned many cars, in good and bad times.

I had some terrible ordeal with my car tires that space will not permit full narration. The FIAT, Land Rover and the Peugeot 504 Saloon, all came at a time when tires were the scarcest of all the essential commodities of that era. People knew a pregnant tire when they saw one. We made friends with virtually all the vulcanizers in town as we were dealing at the critical level of condemned tires.

In my HONDA PRELUDE, a journey from Benin City to Lagos, which ordinarily took about three hours at the time, took two full days. Between Okada Junction and Ijebu-Mushin, a distance of some 70 kilometers, I experienced four tire bursts, with the last burst occurring at Ijebu-Mushin around 7.30 p.m., when vulcanizers had closed for the day.

I slept in the car on the roadside till the following morning when I went to Ijebu-Ode to buy another fairly condemned tire to continue my journey.

This type of journey would have been undertaken in public transportation but I was relocating to Lagos after politics collapsed during the June 12 1993 debacle.

The relocation eventually paid off. The Lagos pastures became greener than one expected. Cars and tires were no longer problems. When issues arose, I had a choice between changing the car and changing its entire tires. Affordability was no longer an issue.

The only time I had a near-fatal accident was under “the good tires regime”. It occurred on the Benin-Agbor Highway after a heavy downpour when I ran into a deep pothole and lost a front tire, a rim, a gearbox and other vital accessories. Many have perished even from smaller accidents but I emerged unscratched. TO GOD BE THE GLORY. [End of Testimony]

What we find here is a paradox – bad tires don’t kill but good ones do. And so paradoxically did former President Goodluck Jonathan once assert that bad roads don‘t cause accidents but good roads do.

The logic is simple: The latter cases provide opportunity for the motorist to press down the throttle. Much as Jonathan’s stance might have been largely escapist, our only stipulation here is that bad tires are not the sole causes of road accidents. It is speed that kills. Campaign against over-speeding must be sustained.

Suddenly, the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, is coming up with a policy of NO EXPIRED TYRES on our roads. FRSC is currently engaged in an intensive sensitization of motorists on the dangers of expired tires. We hear they will soon begin to impound vehicles with expired tires only to release them after due remediation.

Undoubtedly, FRSC means well. Everyone knows the importance of tires as the only contact that vehicles have with the roads.

No one in his right senses would prefer expired tires to the unexpired ones where he can afford the latter. Last September, I spent about N80, 000, including fixing charges, in changing the five tires of my car. How many motorists can afford that in this distressed economy?

And if it costs this much to change the tires of a car, how much would we expect to pay for tires on commercial buses, trailers and other heavy-duty vehicles?

Times are hard. It does not take any advance psychology to see that there is no conviction even on the faces of the FRSC officials engaged in the sensitization exercise because they know what things look like out there. In all conscience, how many of them with cars can beat their chest that all their tires are unexpired?

Again, because of systems failure, the two major tire manufacturing companies we once had in Nigeria – Dunlop and Michelin – have virtually closed shop and moved to friendlier environments. And that’s how Nigeria has since become a dumping ground for all sorts of condemned and expired tires.

Evidently, every expired product is bad. There is no doubt that expired drugs and expired food items are more dangerous than expired tires. Yet, in its wisdom, NAFDAC goes after the manufacturers of, and dealers on fake and adulterated products.

Why is the FRSC now shifting the onus to the motorist instead of facing the importers of, and dealers on, expired tires? We are yet to see anyone arrested for buying fake drugs. Why, then, must the motorist be punished for buying expired tires?

Why is the FRSC crying more than the bereaved? Whose life is the Commission really protecting? We cannot remember when the motorist lost his right to self-determination. Even assuming that expired tires are instant killers (and they are not!); if a coherent and understanding adult chooses to die through expired tires, who are we to insist that he must continue to live against his will?

Elliot Slater is essentially right in maintaining that “A man’s life is his own and if we say it is not, we are saying that he is a slave and not a free man. Slavery is still slavery even when it is the near and dear ones who are the slave masters”.

Nothing in the foregoing should be misconstrued as our total surrender to condemned and expired tires. FRSC must continue its campaign on the dangers of bad tires. Their role should, however, not go beyond this advisory level. They must stop over-regulating the poor!

Government must resist the urge to continue to make obnoxious laws that are insensitive to the plight of the people; and laws that are clearly unenforceable besides their propensity to provide veritable avenues for bribe collection by overzealous enforcers.

If all vehicles with expired tires were to be impounded, FRSC would be virtually left with no time for thorough safety checks on other parts; and we would have to devote a substantial part of our annual budgets to providing parking lots for impounded vehicles. Is that what we want?

Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan is a public affairs analyst and Chairman, Board of Directors, Edo Broadcasting Service. He can be reached at: joligien@yahoo.com