The Federal Road Safety Corps yesterday commenced operation aimed at tracking major traffic offenders in the South West. The Deputy Corps Marshal (Operations) FRSC, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, while inaugurating “Operation Shield 3” at the Egbeda Toll Gate area of Ibadan, said the patrol was aimed at addressing the increasing rate of road accidents in the axis. On Monday in Ibadan inaugurated its road safety campaign tagged 'Operation Shied 3' against major traffic offences in the South-West.

He disclosed that the campaign would cover major roads in Ibadan, Gbongan,

Ile-Ife, Ilesa, Akure, Owo, Ifon down to Benin Toll Plaza. "Operation Shield 3 is taking place simultaneously in four other major corridors in the country. This particular corridor is one of the longest stretches that we have. The essence of this is to address the preponderance of road crashes in the area. "Nigeria is divided into 22 corridors. We have 201,000 kilometers of road networks.

Ten of the 22 corridors that we have in the country are prone to crashes. Five of the corridors are more notorious. These are Abuja-Lokoja, Okene road, Kaduna-Abuja, Benin-Asaba and Lagos-Ibadan."We have noticed that this zone is still recording high level of crashes and we need to do everything possible being our primary responsibility to reduce road crashes on our highways. We must ensure that we bring crashes at the major black spots under control,” he said.

According to him, "We need to shift attention from light traffic violation

and deal with primary offences. We are looking at dangerous driving, overloading, wrong use of lane and wrongful overtaking. "The mobile courts will operate so that the erring drivers can be prosecuted. It is the directive of the Corps Marshal that everybody must put in his best in our primary responsibilities to cut down crashes and reduce fatalities to zero. 

"With this, we have been able to bring down the level of crashes along four of the five notorious corridors. In the last weeks Ibadan-Ife and Ifon-Ore

down to Benin have been recording high rate of crashes,” he added.

The FRSC boss explained that the essence of this was to really ensure that  “we bring down the rate of traffic. We are bringing in all the resources that we have as well as the support that we receive. We just got support from the World Bank. We have all it takes for us to function effectively."

The campaign was marked with distribution of banners to enlighten motorists and the members of the public about safety issues.