BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH
THEY belong to the set of drivers whose driver’s license ought to be confiscated without the least hope of having them back again assuming we are in a country where things work out well and sanity brought to bear on the things we do in this country we overlook that can earn one some jail terms in the advanced world where such offence is not handled with kids glove.
With eyes that are left constantly bleary and reddish, aftermath of uncontrolled quaffing, smoking and high in-take of drugs, they go behind the steering wheels, where they drive, charging in at any bus stop, as they stop abruptly to pick and drop passengers while leaving many hearts of other road users dis-engaging from their positions, panting, tumbling and throbbing as a result of their horrific driving styles.
When they try to correct them, they deride at the person, sounding sarcastic; they tell you when they started driving your forebears were not born then, and as such their driving style remains sacrosanct and can never be questioned. They talk rudely, sound nasty and lack any trace of people raised from decent homes.
An elderly woman I believe should be in her early 70s and looked like one that has high blood pressure, was cursed to die instantly when she tried to caution an ordained reckless bus driver at Igbuzor junction, Asaba, over his unprofessional driving method.
He had in his usual fit of madness, as revealed by those who knew him very well, driven to the bus stop charging in noisily in a manner usually associated with drivers of like minds. The elderly woman was said to have fell down immediately upon hearing the constant beeping of the bus horn, the hard revving on the revving on the engine that woman’s heart literarily dismembered.
Sympathizers around had to keep attending to her, pressing her heart, and some suggesting the pouring of cold water on her before she eventually returned to consciousness.
The commercial bus driver, who at that material time showed some measure of repentance, was highly admonished for his perceived wrong doing while some of his colleagues in their usual culture of arrogance and rude behavior, flagrantly displaced them.
The way some of these commercial drivers and some other motorists behave while behind the steering wheels calls for questioning, and leaves a lot to be desired.
Some of them drive recklessly, to the point of not obeying the traffic light. They drive and drink at the same time, not minding the risk they expose their passengers and themselves to. They drive as if they do not know that at times break of a vehicle could fail. And a lot of them had fallen victim of such negligence in the past with some still daily being victims of the same risk they dive into headlong.
This unwholesome act is not restricted to bus drivers alone. Keke Napep operators are also neck deep in the heart-failing act. They park recklessly on the road while trying to pick and drop their passengers. And the moment they are challenged, they give you the wrong side of their tongues.
All these have led to many accidents occurring.
Somewhere close to Akpuh junction, off Okpanam Road, a Keke Napep driver in a bit to act faster than his shadow, rammed into a school boy waiting to board a vehicle to his school.
The driver instead of taking the badly injured school boy to the nearest available healthcare center for medical attention, he seen arguing badly, saying the boy was not standing on the walkway, that rather, he was standing on the way hence he ran into him.
It was observed that while he was claiming right over the accident, his mouth oozed and reeked with booze while his body smelt Indian hemp. Though he tried to deny the fact that he was driving under the influence of alcohol and drug, he was compelled to admit when some police officers threatened to take him to forensic lab for a check.
Many of such drunk-while-driving drivers abound on our roads, and are found in most motor parks where they use gutter slangs ‘You don baff’ ‘I won clear my eye’ ‘Make I go school run’ ‘My eye dey dull, make I go colouram’etc.
Both themselves and the passengers they are conveying to their different destinations, as they get drunk, are already on their way to be included on the danger list they don’t seem to know, or they know and simply decide to dance on the fringes of risk.
When they are calling in passengers, it is done in the most barbaric and noisy manner, to the extent of causing embarrassment to intending passengers. They drag bags, curse and teased when a passenger refuses to enter their vehicle due to their unruly behavior. At times passengers lost their luggage to these miscreants masquerading as bus conductors and drivers. Their behavior are nauseating that at some junctions, one stops to ask if these conductors were given birth to by responsible parents.
At times when they drive anyhow, not observing traffic rules and driving at maddening speed, passengers’ opinion on their reckless driving are divided. While some try to caution them on the danger the driver is exposing his passengers and himself to through his reckless driving, other passengers are seen challenging them-saying ‘if you people don’t know we are in a hurry, you better know it now.’ These set of passengers are always in a hurry to catch up with either their clients or goods.
Some security personnel meant to check these anomalies in their driving, most times compromise in their duties by having their palms greased by these reckless drivers even when they know such drivers are involved in drunk-driving resulting to anyhow driving, or better still, hooked on drugs as they drive.
This is not restricted to the commercial drivers alone; sometimes too, private car owners are involved. Long duty articulated vehicles are nowadays driven by under-aged youths who try to exhibit their youth exuberance with such long vehicles they drive.
The licensing office that issues driver’s license to such young persons remains a mystery to many people. The question again is don’t the authorities question their age?
Let us all not pretend we don’t know what is happening on our roads. These drivers must be put in check. They should be a testing device to detect those who drive under the influence of alcohol and hard drugs. Their lives and those of the passengers are at risk by so doing. And traffic officers should, on their own, be up and doing; they should think less about bribe-taking and allow the law to take its course on these reckless drivers who do not consider the lives of passengers they carry in their vehicles.
Their unruly behaviors also at the park must not go unchecked. It is from their various motor parks their brains are charged up; they smoke there, drink from there, before going before the steering wheels to commence their journey. If you are an intending passenger that wants to make use of any of the motor parks, and you go there, most times the smell of Indian hemp greets such passengers nostrils while drivers unable to wage war against the reeking smell by not applying perfume and other forms of deodorant on their bodies to conceal the bad odor, get betrayed easily.
The impudence exhibited by some of these drives remains another source of worry. Some of them while driving, light up Indian hemp, smoking as they drive. And when anyone try to challenge them, they simply tell that person that they are feeling sleepy and dull, hence they decide to warm up. Some who have fear of the security, easily put off the light on such high cigar, while some drive straight to the checking point still armed with their Indian hemp.
I once witnessed it while I was on my way to Lagos. This driver had lit up his already wrapped Indian hemp he brought out from the dash board of his bus and lit it without caring to ask me if it will, or will not disturb me because I was there on the front seat with him.
A woman sitting next to us on the back row questioned him on why he will driving and smoking at the same time, while still sipping some alcohol from the sachet he had up to five of them, he asked the woman in return: ‘which is better, smoking in order to be agile on the steering, or not warming up to prevent the sleep that is making my eye-lids heavy, and ending up in the bush with my passengers. ‘If witch people don kill you for una village, wait until you come down from my bus before you go die. No carry your bad luck come jam me and other passengers’ he retorted.
