146,879 Vehicles Impounded In One Year

The Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) has impounded 146,879 rickety vehicles in the last one year in a bid to ensure that only road-worthy vehicles ply the highways.

This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Transportation, Prof. Bamidele Badejo, saying that the Vehicle Inspection Unit of the ministry had played a huge role in ensuring that only road-worthy vehicles were allowed to ply the roads.

He also disclosed that 628 vehicles were crushed in the last one year as a result of their bad condition, insisting that the administration was not enforcing the law because of financial gains.

Badejo implored all motorists in the state to ensure that their vehicles were road-worthy in order to avoid loss of lives and properties.

On the activities of the Lagos State Motor Vehicles Administration Agency (MVAA), the commissioner said the agency had moved from manual registration to full automation.

“The MVAA inherited a system of manual registration and capturing of data on vehicles and drivers which posed serious challenges to the agency’s founding objectives as well as the realisation of the state government’s vision of achieving rapid transformation of the transportation sector,” he said.

According to him, the manual registration was characterised by general poor level of public compliance, lack of transparency, time consuming and revenue leakages, among others.

Badejo stated that the agency now use Automated Registration (AUTOREG), which is in partnership between MVAA and Courteville Investments Limited in consonance with the state government’s policy thrust which emphasised public/private sector partnership.

He said the gains of AUTOREG include full automation of license issuance, improved public interface and compliance level, virtually eliminated forgery and faking of vehicle documents, generation and storage of digital data on vehicle registration, reduction in vehicle theft as well as increased recovery of stolen vehicles, among others.

“The robust MVAA database now has data on 2.2 million vehicles and their owners, arguably the biggest databank in West African sub-region,” he stated.

On activities of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), the commissioner disclosed that the authority had been able to impound 23,719 vehicles in the last one year for violating the traffic laws of the state.

“Out of the 23,719 vehicles, 1,867 were impounded for driving in the direction prohibited by law, while 4,540 were siezed for picking and dropping of passengers at places other than bus stops and 7,320 vehicles apprehended for willful obstruction.

“Similarly, out of the total number of vehicles towed, 4,817 were public, while 2,994 were private” he said.

On the Lagos State Drivers Institute, Badejo disclosed that about 675,000 drivers had been trained and certified by the institute since its establishment in 2007.

According to him, while 500,000 drivers were re-trained and certified, 175,000 went through full scale training in vehicle driving maintenance, management, customer service relations, ethics and how to be road-user friendly.

Badejo further disclosed that as part of the institute’s mandate, a comprehensive database of professional drivers in the state was being created just as the institute assisted driving schools in curriculum development and instructor’s training.