The Kaduna Zonal Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) on Wednesday called on motorists plying the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway to exercise patience while driving along the 12 kilometres diversion between Kaduna and Jaji.
The Zonal Commanding Officer, Assistant Corps Marshal Ayobami Omiyale, in charge of Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa States, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna state.
NAN reports that the Federal Government had in June 2018 flagged off the reconstruction of Abuja-Kaduna -Zaria – Kano road with a 36-month completion period.
The road from Kaduna -Zaria has a 12-kilometre diversion from four lanes to two lanes, a situation that is causing serious traffic problem for motorists, considering the volume of traffic.
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Omiyale said that not less than 1,000 vehicles passed through the 12 kilometres diversion every hour and 16 vehicles every minute.
He said the road was recording huge volume of traffic because Kaduna state is the gateway to the entire Northwest.
He said that vehicles coming from Jos, Lagos, Abuja, all converged to enter the Northwest through Kaduna state.
“There is also high volume of tankers and trailers using the road. It would take 20 minutes to remove a vehicle that blocked the road due to an accident or when a car broke down on the road.
“This means that if the road is blocked for just 20 minutes, there will be about 320 vehicles queuing up.
“This is why we are appealing to motorists on proper use of the road. If every driver decides to move one at a time, there will be no incident, no hold up, no gridlock and no accident.
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“However, if every driver wants to go at the same time, there will be accident and once there is a crash, there will be gridlock and no driver can move again since no one can fly,’’ Omiyale said.
He said due to impatience during gridlock, some drivers, in attempting to manoeuvre their way, compounded the situation and caused traffic jam that sometime lasted for six to eight hours.
He noted that given the volume of traffic, every driver needed to be patient and go down to the common-sense speed limit; follow the vehicle in front in heavy traffic and avoid dangerous overtaking.
“Drivers need to also know that at that point where the road is diverted from four lanes to two, it is no longer an expressway because it does not match the definition of an expressway.
“An expressway is a four-lane carriage way conveying two lanes of traffic in one direction and two lanes in the opposite direction with a barrier in between to prevent traffic from one direction crossing to the other.
“Once there is a diversion, it has become a single carriage way and drivers must obey the rules applicable to single carriage way; meaning there is no longer fast lane and drivers can no longer over take whenever they like,” he said.
The Kaduna Sector Commander, Umar Ibrahim, said that 20 marshals had been deployed to the diverted areas to ease traffic flow.
Ibrahim said that the FRSC was working in collaboration with the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, who equally deployed some personnel to ensure free flow of traffic. (NAN)
