Commercial motorists and other stakeholders in Ekiti have appealed to the police and FRSC to impound vehicles being driven by underage drivers to curb incidents of auto crash on highways.

Some commercial motorists who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ikole-Ekiti deplored the high number of underage drivers on roads.

According to them, such drivers drive recklessly without obeying traffic rules and regulations.

One of the motorists, Mr. Sola Ajibola said the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) should take a firm action against underage boys and girls driving on the highways.

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Ajibola alleged that these underage drivers do not know the rules and regulations guiding driving, but they have driver’s license.

“I want to appeal to the state government to ban underage boys and girls from driving cars on the the highway.

“Many of them are not qualified to drive at 15, 16 and even 17 years of age, because they are inexperienced.

“For us to protect their lives and the lives of other road users, the FRSC should start arresting them and impounding their cars to serve as deterrent to others,” he said.

Another motorist, Mr. Joseph Otunla, who narrated his near death experience, said that an underage driver almost killed him as a result of excessive speeding on the highway.

Also, an official of the NURTW, Ikole-Ekiti branch, Mr. Moses Ojo, blamed poor parenting for underage drivers seen behind the wheels.

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Ojo said several lives have been wasted by underage boys driving cars at high speed on highways and called for government intervention to stop the menace.

” Many lives have been lost to autocrash caused by underage drivers who are inexperienced and unqualified to drive cars and even motorcycles.

” Some of them do not even have driver’s licence, those ones that have were actually forged while some of them bribe FRSC officials to get captured and pay substantial money to get driver’s licence,” he said.

In his reaction, a legal practitioner, Mr. Joseph Ayodele, said that the constitution of Nigeria permits only Nigerians of 18 years and above to have access to a car.

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Ayodele explained that the Nigerian constitution defines a child as a person under 18 years of age and outlines their rights, including protection and care, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and the right to education.

He said that underage driving should not be allowed because a child of 15 years was not qualified to drive a car or have access to driver’s licence.

Ayodele urged the state government and the FRSC to severely sanction underage driving in order to curb autocrash and unnecessary loss of innocent lives on the highways.