In the next 72 hours we shall be celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid- el- Kabir. Specifically, Muslim faithful will file into designated praying grounds to give thanks to Almighty Allah for His blessings, guidance and protection .We are in celebrating mood. As a matter of fact, the past few weeks have been characterised with peculiar road traffic challenges occasioned by mass movement of people from one part of the country to the other in preparation for the sallah. Both the commercial drivers and other motorists have been in a sort of frenzied mood. This on its own has the tendency to elicit risky behaviour on the road. Not only risky behaviour, but out right disregard for and contravention of basic traffic rules and regulations. Among such contraventions and disregard for safety are over speeding, dangerous overtaking like overtaking at a bend or steep of the hill, overloading and use of mechanically deficient vehicles on the road, among a host of others. There is however, the need for us at this period more than ever before to do things that will make the road safe so as to protect the lives of all and sundry that ply the nation's roads and highways. As such, our drivers, motorists and other road users, need not rush themselves to death. This is because life is sweet and life is good. We should all drive to stay alive to wait and enjoy our sweat, while we should not allow somebody else to eat the fruit of our labour and sweat.Because there is the tendency for more traffic challenges including crashes at this period, there is therefore the need for us to focus more attention on those things that can cause road traffic crashes so that we shall be able to proffer solution to them and successful prevention could become possible. There has been a strong focus of causal accident theory on human errors. It is believed that a successful modification of human behaviour is about the only effective measure to prevent road traffic accidents and crashes. Among such human errors that have been attributed to serious road traffic crashes are overloading, over speeding and dangerous overtaking among a host of other road vices. For instance, despite the illegalities of overloading combined with its fatal consequences, majority of our drivers and motorists continue to pack human and goods like tins of sardine, all in order to maximise profit.It should be realised that an overloaded vehicle will not only cause damage to our roads and bridges, but it will also cause damage to the vehicle, while the driver, the passengers and other road users are put at great risk and danger. Without sounding alarming, we should note that vehicles react abnormally when the maximum weight they are designed to carry is exceeded.Overloading vehicles with either passengers or goods makes the vehicle less stable, difficult to steer and takes longer to stop when the brake is applied. The driver's ability to steer and brake correctly is impaired as the vehicle becomes hard to drive and hard to stop while in cases of extreme overloading, the brake can fail completely, especially on dangerous hills.There is the need for our drivers and other motorists to ensure that their vehicles do not exceed the gross vehicle weight. The gross vehicle weight is the maximum permitted weight of the vehicle. It is a known fact that several road traffic crashes and accidents have also occurred as a result of tyre bursts, with the resultant effect of the inability of the driver to further control the vehicle, leading to a crash. Tyre bursts can occur as a result of stream on vehicle tyres leading to over heat, rapid wearing which will eventually lead to premature and dangerous bursts especially when vehicles are on motion. Also, the dangerous effect of overloading could also be seen through damage to our roads, bridges and pavements. That majority of our roads are in state of disrepair could also be attributed to the heavy volume of traffic on the roads, as well as the heavy loads and the outright overloading of the vehicles which the roads were not originally designed to carry. It is easy to identify an overloaded vehicle as the rear of such vehicles is closer to the ground and the tyres become strained or flat.However, to ensure that your vehicle is not overloaded , you need to drive to the nearest point to check the loads and in the event of overload, you need to take off some of the loads, and after the drop-offs, you need to recheck the distribution of the remaining loads because shifting could cause the axle of the vehicle to fall off, a situation that endangers the life of the driver and those of other occupants of the vehicle.Overloading, no doubt has been identified as one of the major causes of road traffic crashes in the country. Many had died during such crashes as a result of overcrowding while escape becomes difficult in such situations. There is the need for all motorists to ensure that as we celebrate the Sallah all those dangerous driving habits and road vices and rage are stopped forthwith.Don't kill yourself and don't kill others. You are more useful here on earth than in the grave, hence, the Federal Road Safety Corps will arrest and prosecute anyone that flouts the rule of the road. Happy Sallah and safe motoring into the yuletides and beyond.
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