The Federal Road Safety Corps has this morning stated that the media misquoted its statement. This is concerning the issue of using google maps while driving as a traffic offence. Many media outlets yesterday, Wednesday 27th November 2019, reported this.
They quoted the Sector Commander, Federal Capital Territory, Corps Commander Wobin Ayuba Gora as saying that driving with the aid of Google maps is a serious traffic offence.
However, Bisi Kazeem, the Corps Commander Public Education Officer, FRSC refuted the claim. In a signed statement the authority said that Gora was “quoted out of context on the use of google map app while driving.”
The statement reads: “The Corps wishes to state that the Sector Commander must have been misquoted and his statement outrightly misrepresented. Because the Federal Road Safety Corps as a technology-driven organisation is not and has never stood against the use of google map by motorists.
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“To state the obvious, we have always enlightened the public on the position of the law on the use of phone while driving which the Sector Commander tried to emphasize during the flag off.
The statement he made during the flag off buttresses the position of the Corps, which is that any driver who intends to deploy the use of Google map while driving must have it set on the phone before embarking on the journey. Not while the vehicle is already in motion as this could be dangerous to the driver and other road users, and can lead to road traffic crash”.
“We say this because available records have shown that use of mobile phones for whatever purpose. Be it text, voice calls, chats, browsing, setting google map to find a location while driving could be distractive and can easily lead to loss of concentration. This has led to many road traffic crashes with attendant loss of lives and properties”.
“On the strength of this, the Federal Road Safety Corps wishes to reiterate its position on use of phone while driving as a dangerous and hazardous road traffic behaviour which has led to unwanted and avoidable road crashes”.
“We, therefore, call on all motorists who intend to deploy the use of google maps on their phone especially during the festive season when traffic density is high, to activate such before setting the vehicle in motion so as to ensure 100% concentration on the wheels.”
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