Total promotes road safety, rewards drivers with cash, others

In efforts to ensure safety and efficiency to curb road accidents in the country, Total Nigeria Plc at the weekend, in Lagos, rewarded some of its worthy drivers with cash and other items for promoting road safety.

The company at its Annual Drivers’ Awards, and launch of this year’s Safety Posters’ Campaign, said the initiative, which has been on-going for the past 10 years is to drive safety performance as well as encourage drivers on better delivery.

The Distribution Manager, Total Nigeria, Umar Abduliah, disclosed that the company has not recorded any road accident since January, hence the need to celebrate the people responsible for the safety record.

He also said similar awards were held at the three territories, as drivers were rewarded in their various zones with diverse home appliances like fridges, air conditioners, home theatres and a host of others as well as cash prizes.

The winner of the National Award, Shehu Mohammed, had a cash prize of a N100,000 and a 1.5 inch split air conditioner.

Abduliah explained that although there are many criteria in the selections of the best performing drivers, safety and efficiency was the major one to look out for; “we don’t want any driver to record an accident that is why we set up parameters where we ranked all our drivers nationwide.”

While unveiling this year’s safety posters campaign to the drivers, the distribution manager appealed to them to abide by the campaign’s commitments, since it creates the awareness and knowledge of safety to them. With this in mind, “they would drive carefully and not pose any hazards to motorists and road users.”

The Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), who was represented by Tunji Oguntoye, cautioned drivers against the use of errand boys who lacked adequate training, to move their tankers around town, as it has become a rampant act and poses dangers to road users.

He also charged the drivers to always carry their highway codes to serve as a guide, because observation revealed that lack of information on the codes cause lots of unwanted road problems.