FRSC Takes Safety Education To Mechanic Workshops In Anambra

Raymond Ozoji, Awka

The Federal Road Safety Commission has introduced more viable means of
ensuring that the gospel of safety trickles  down to the grassroots to instill the culture of safety and precautions at work places especially where inflammable objects are handled on regular basis like automobile engineering workshops otherwise called mechanic workshops in local parlance. The move became very poignant because there have been a number of explosions at local mechanic workshops and quack welding workshops as evident in the most recent fire outbreak that occurred at a welder’s workshop in Amawbia, Awka-South local government area of the state, killing the welder instantly, who was said to have been working on a a rickety  petrol tanker with his welding machines and not aware that the truck had remnants of petroleum products in it. This ignited the inferno, causing serious explosions in the area.

Having understudied the entire scenario, the FRSC in Anambra resolved that the real beneficiaries of their safety campaigns should be mechanics across the state. This took the commission to some mechanical workshops at Amawbia/Enugwu-Agidi junction, Kwata, Nibo, Hightention Aroma Awka, Maryland Estate Amawbia, to mention a few workshops they visited in the course of spreading the message of safety and the need to have fire-extinquishers as well as other protective gargets at the workshops, in case of unfortunate situations like fire outbreaks.

The sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission in Anambra state, Mr. Andrew Ayodele Kumapayi, stated that they came up with what he called the Automobile Workshop Advocacy, primarily to use the initiative as a veritable alternative to reducing road traffic crashes caused by mechanical deficiencies in vehicles. Kumapayi who underscored the significance of the strategy, stressed, “One of the identified factors that cause road traffic crashes, is the Mechanical Factor. FRSC Anambra State created a home grown public enlightenment initiative called, ‘Automobile Workshop Advocacy’, which is an intensive Public Enlightenment Campaign geared towards reduction of Road Traffic Crashes caused by mechanically deficient vehicles, occasioned by bad repairs/maintenance of such vehicles, especially by the use of fake and substandard spare parts.”
He said the advocacy visits enabled the commission to educate mechanics by telling them that they are stakeholders in saving lives and not cutting corners while rendering their services to the motoring public because the type of materials they use in servicing vehicles and other automobiles really determine the extent to which mechanically induced road traffic crashes would be reduced in the state.

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