FRSC Goes Tough on Traffic Offenders,Sets to introduce N100,000 fine

The FRSC has disclosed that plans are underway to compel traffic offenders pay the sum of N100,000 as fines.

The corps marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Boboye Oyeyemi, says plans are underway to compel traffic offenders to pay one hundred thousand naira as penalty for a traffic offence.

 NAN reports. NAIJ.com gathers that Oyeyemi said this in an interview on the sideline of the Technical Working Group on Nigeria Road Safety Strategy on Wednesday, December 20, in Abuja.

“You cannot arrest somebody for using a phone while driving and he pays four thousand naira as penalty.

 And almost immediately, he goes back to commit same offence. “Fines are supposed to serve as deterrent, which is why I said that I am in support of what the National Assembly is doing presently amending the Act of the FRSC to make the fines go up. “I was not the one that initiated it; it is the National Assembly that initiated it, and I am in support and I will make sure that before the middle of next year, this is passed into law.

“I believe that by the time traffic offenders’ start paying between fifty to one hundred thousand naira for a single traffic offence, they will not want to commit such offence again.”

 The FRSC boss reiterated that penalties for traffic offences were to serve as deterrent, adding that the present regime of fines and penalties do not serve as deterrent, hence the need to increase the fines.

He continued: “Look at Lagos, the minimum fine is fifty thousand naira and people are complying. “I am not a revenue generating agency; but again, we must ensure that those fines serve as deterrent for people not to do it again

“When an offender pays fifty thousand or one hundred thousand naira fine, he or she will think twice before committing the offence again. “What is the essence of a person disobeying traffic light and pays four thousand naira only?

 In fact, some of them insult us saying ‘ is it not four thousand?’.

“They will go to our office and use the POS to pay and walk away and you will see them entering their cars and using the phone again.”

Oyeyemi explained that aside fines, the FRSC also takes traffic offenders to health facilities and courts of law. He stressed that the court usually gives its own penalty, “but the court is always liberal a bit; we appreciate them.”

Source  Naij.com