A couple of weeks ago, I did a piece captioned, RED LIGHT RUNNER. In that piece I sought to know the red-light runners. The big boys who run red lights in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. In Lagos. Port Harcourt and other cities. The convoy drivers who delight in doing the same. I am talking about the drivers who boast about the efficacy of the blood of Jesus in the event of a collision. I mean those who plead the blood after disregarding the law of the land because they have arrived.
Those, who while heading for the house of prayer have no regard for the law of the land. Those above the law. The untouchables. The movers and shakers of Nigerian society. The immune drivers whose lives are indeed beyond destruction. Who decorate their steering wheel with special feathers for protection against death in the event of a fatal collision. The ones beyond destruction.
I am talking about drivers who do not care about the number of fatal collisions at traffic junctions in major cities. The number of Injuries? Or economic losses due to damaged traffic lights or the economic cost to the government, as well as individuals?
Today’s piece is for them. We may not have the appropriate closed-circuit television (CCTV) and other urban surveillance technology to curtail their suicidal driving but kudos to the Nigeria Senate which recently passed the Federal Road Safety Corps Amendment Bill awaiting President Bola Tinubu assent. I don’t know if you are aware. I don’t even know if you have taken the pain to browse through this game changing Bill which holds a lot of promises for road safety in Nigeria.
Before I dwell on the nitty gritty of the Bill, please allow me to guide you through why governments across the globe impose fines. Fines serve several core objectives. They serve as deterrence, discouraging dangerous driving behavior such as excessive speeding, running red lights, driving under the influence by making violations costly both for the individual as a deterrent and drivers generally. As punishment, fines impose a proportionate penalty for breaking traffic laws while as a public safety instrument, reduces road traffic crashes, deaths and injuries by incentivizing compliance with rules designed to protect road users.
Revenue generation is another but unlike revenue from agencies with such a mandate, these revenues fund road maintenance and traffic enforcement. Behavioral correction encourages habitual compliance over time rather than one-time punishment while also reinforcing certain behaviors such as seatbelt. These underlying reasons were responsible for the steps that guided the passage of the Bill.
The passage is a watershed development in our country’s approach to road safety. The Bill introduces a sweeping overhaul of traffic offences representing a shift from a system of symbolic fines to one of meaningful deterrence.
Since 1988 when the Corps was birthed, traffic fines were in the words of a road safety expert a joke as they deterred nobody. Fines then ranged from as low as a hundred naira with a thousand as the highest. This period witnessed a high level of arrogance by some road users especially the big boys who would often offer to pay on the spot.
Even in the face of inflation, and economic reality, these meagre fines remained the same. For instance, a five thousand penalty for high-risk offences such as drunk driving or speeding which perhaps looked significant when first enacted had become a little inconvenience for many traffic offenders.
The new fines regimes have changed all that by raiding fines by up to 300 percent in response to what road safety advocates have over the years argued by insisting that penalties much carry financial weight to change behavior a position a Senator concurred with when he observed that “the penalties must hurt enough to change behaviour.”
So, what is this new era of enforcement? Let me start with traffic light violations. Before the Bill was passed, traffic light violation was five thousand Naira but the amended legislation has now jerked this fine to a hundred thousand Naira from the previous five thousand Naira which perhaps explain why the level of impunity was extremely high among all categories of road users. This hike underscores government recognition that disregarding traffic signals is not a minor infraction but a direct threat to public safety.
Traffic light infraction is just one among the others. The penalty structure which should be of interest to deviants include drunk driving increased from five thousand to N100,000 with offenders now facing up to two years imprisonment or both. Interestingly, motorists who refuse cooperate with roadside breath test would cough out N50,000,six month imprisonment or both or both while speeding now attracts a fine of N100,000 replacing the previous fine of N5,000.
Reckless driving which is rampant carries a fine of N100,000,up to two years imprisonment or both while hawking, trading and preaching in commercial vehicles attract a fine of N50,000 for activities that cause driver distraction.
What then is the primary significance of this increase. It lies in its deterrent effect. According to economic theorists, traffic penalties must outweigh potential benefits from noncompliance. With these new fine’s regime, the cost of ignoring traffic rules now exceeds the perceived benefit for most offenders especially for commercial drivers for whom time savings from speeding might previously have outweighed the meagre N5,000 fine.
Besides the above, our traffic laws now reflect current economic realities. As the Senators noted, previous penalties no longer reflected present day realities and therefore failed to serve as an effective deterrent. By revising these penalties, they have provided the Corps operatives with clearer enforcement guidelines and stronger legal backing. Meanwhile it will lead to reduced road traffic crashes and fatalities while making traffic infractions painful. I am excited that risk driving behavior form the core of the targeted offences such as speeding, drink driving and distraction.
What the Senate has done is to strengthen the Corps enforcement apparatus by empowering operatives to conduct breath tests and penalizing refusal to cooperate which is significant in addressing impaired driving. All of these changes excite me as the new regime is expected to usher in responsible driving behavior and a safer road culture.
I must give the Senators their flowers for the boldness in aligning Nigeria with global best practices where fines are essential road safety strategy. No doubt the new regime’s success would depend on efficient implementation based on the need for the capacity needed to make this sail through. These challenges notwithstanding, this shift excites me and I look forward to seeing a nationwide advocacy and public enlightenment to bring this new regime to the consciousness of the average Nigerian. So, welcome to an era of deterrence and bye bye to the era of tokenism.
