The Transport and Indiscipline Management Agency of Abia State (TIMAAS) has served notice of its intention to start full implementation of the Abia State Road Safety Management Law, including subjecting traffic offenders to psychiatric test.

The Deputy Managing Director of TIMAAS, Mr Bright Ikokwu, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in his office in Aba on Thursday,

The law provides that a driver caught moving against traffic should pay a fine of N60,000. But Ikokwu suggests that this should be increased to curb the high rate of traffic offences, particularly in Aba.

“The essence of making these fines heavy is to ensure that people should dread breaking the law twice,” he said because traffic indiscipline abound in the state

“So must we continue in sin because grace abounds? That is why we decided to make the fines heavy so that if you pass through it you will become a witness to others. It is a rough terrain we are operating now. But with time things will get better as the Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has shown us,” he added.

Ikokwu further explained that the punishment for such offences as driving against traffic include a psychiatric test on the offender in a government hospital, stressing that the provision has a purpose.

“If someone fails the test, we have seen an opportunity to save more lives. It means that the person is not even fit to be where sane people are so he should be hospitalised. The person is also not fit for driving and as he goes through the test, he can start taking his drugs,” he said.

Ikokwu warned road users in Abia to stop committing traffic offences or they should be ready to face the music.

“There is a recessive pattern here. It is not a case of omission but a case of commission. Somebody will just intentionally do something unlawful as say ‘This place is Aba,’ Ikokwu said.

The DMD, who oversees TIMAAS operations in Aba zone, noted that it was the need to curb this attitude of feeling emboldened in breaking traffic offences that has necessitated the call for upward review of fines against traffic offences in the law of Abia State.

He contended that offenders should not be treated with kid gloves because traffic offence usually involves human lives.

“If you do not do it that way (upward review), you will see somebody who would come up to this office and say, how much is the fines let me pay in advance for breaking of the law for myself and family for one month,” he said.

He explained that why the Abia State Traffic Mobile Court was not being often used in trying traffic offenders. According to him, they are not being used in some places because some of the offences in the law were “straightforward and clear.”

•Photo shows Governor Ikpeazu.