TheCable

Boboye Oyeyemi, corps marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), has revealed that deaths from road accidents reduced by 35 percent during the Easter period of 2017.

He made this known during a review of the 2017 Easter special patrol conducted by the commission.

But Oyeyemi said this year’s figure showed a 4.4 percent increase from last year’s record in terms of offences.

He added that a 200 percent increase was recorded in the number of people rescued alive this year as compared to the same period last year.

“In the course of the operations, the rate of rescued alive increased to 229 percent as compared to 2016 even as the number involved increased by 55 percent,” he said.

“In the same vein, 8,896 offences were committed by 7,589 offenders who were arrested for various infractions.

“Mobile Court sittings were also held across the country during which 398 persons were arraigned while 382 of them were convicted and 16 discharged and acquitted.”

He said this year’s Easter patrol operations “opened the corps to more preventive measures with the support and collaboration of the motorists and relevant stakeholders including the security agencies”.

Oyeyemi also appealed to commercial motorists to ensure that they install the speed limiting device in their vehicles “as the campaign against speed related crashes would be more aggressively pursued through enforcement of the use of the devices which commenced on February 1, this year”.