By Johnbosco Agbakwuru, Calabar
Four officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Cross River State Command, narrowly escaped death in Calabar, Friday as a taxi driver, Mr. Smith Stanley nearly crushed them in an attempt to evade being arrested when he was flagged down for traffic offences.

However, the taxi driver was beaten to submission by the officers and men of the corps when policemen controlling traffic succeeded in stopping him.

Officials of FRSC in collaboration with Road Safety Marshalls, NYSC Safety Club and other safety related clubs, were conducting the yearly Yuletide awareness campaign on road safety along the popular eleven-eleven bus stop, opposite the Central Bank of Nigeria in Calabar, when the incident occurred.

The FRSC officials had flagged down the driver to give him the sensitization leaflets given to other motorists on how to regulate their speed during the Christmas season but incidentally noticed that the blue-colour taxi cab, an Aveo Chevrolet, with registration number, Cross River XB 533 CAL, was overloaded with six passengers, excluding the driver.

In attempting to escape, the driver used his vehicle to shove the four officials aside while maneuvering his way through the traffic jam, but ran out of luck when a Police Traffic Warden used another vehicle to block the taxi.

His action infuriated officials of the corps, who immediately got hold of him and punched him several times before dragging him out of the driver’s seat and eventually impounding the vehicle.

When confronted on the issue, the Sector Commander of FRSC in Cross River State, Mr. Taiwo Eseyin, said any driver who contravened the law would be brought to book.

Eseyin, who was not at the scene of the incident, however, said officials of the commission had gone out on enlightenment campaign on the need to observe caution while driving during this festive season but not expected to deal with traffic offenders negatively.

Posted by admin on Dec 17 2011. Filed under Cross River, Headlines, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry