Our interest is on a section of this law that forces motorists to forfeit their cars to government, if caught driving against traffic. Apart from serving a year in jail (three years for repeat offences), the law empowers government to impound and auction offending vehicles.
This section of the legislation is a good example of how to deliberately go rogue with a well-intentioned law. The impact of this rogue section became apparent last week when a few motorists stood by the sidelines wailing as officials auctioned their vehicles. And trust Nigerians, many rushed to profit from the bazaar where good cars were sold for a pittance. Will it surprise anyone if it turns out that the buyers were relatives of or fronts for government officials? This is, however, a subject for another day. The issue can be framed as a question: Is there any justification for this rogue section that targets personal property as if it is a traffic offender? One way to provide clarity on the issue is to compare the Lagos law with other legislations on dangerous and reckless driving both here in Nigeria and overseas.
In Nigeria, the Federal Road Safety Act prescribes seven-year jail sentences and fines for reckless driving that causes death. For lesser offences, the penalty is a year in jail and a fine of N50,000. The Federal Highway Act also provides a seven-year jail term for dangerous driving. There are similar provisions in the British law from where we derived most of our legislation. The UK law prescribes maximum 14 years in prison and minimum two-year driving ban for “dangerous driving” that causes death. For “careless driving” that results in death, the punishment is maximum five years in prison and minimum 12-month ban.
For non-criminal traffic offences, in the UK and United States, vehicles are impounded only for serial offenders and those unable to pay prescribed fines. The vehicles are neither forfeited to the state nor auctioned. They are rather towed to a private garage where they continue to attract demurrage. The motorist owes the state the cost of removal to the garage as well as assessed fine at the point of removal. This is all they owe government. It is only the private garage owner that may apply for a lien to auction vehicles to recover their storage fees. In the UK, the vehicles are taken to junkyards and crushed. In all cases, government does not forcibly seize citizens’ property and transfer their ownership to other citizens through auction or other types of sale.
This is where the Lagos traffic law becomes obnoxious and an assault on citizen rights. The law prescribes that the government impounds and auctions a vehicle that is driven against traffic, in addition to sending any convicted motorist to a one-year jail term for a first offence. Nothing can be as dangerous or reckless driving that results in death, yet the law allows them to keep their vehicles. This is because every good traffic law holds the driver responsible for safe operation of their vehicles. Even where the car has a dangerous fault or carries an unsafe load, the driver is still held responsible. By the time the offender emerges from paying a hefty fine or serving jail sentence for his negligence, no one needs to tell them to obey traffic laws, going forward.
The point is that the condition of the vehicle and the manner of its operation are products of decisions by the motorist. The responsibility is squarely on the driver who is assumed to be using equipment that he trained and obtained a license to operate. If a man who uses his vehicle to kill a pedestrian will not lose the equipment that he negligently operated to cause death, why would someone who ran against traffic suffer this injustice?
Let it, however, be understood that nothing written above justifies traffic irresponsibility on Lagos roads. Careless and dangerous drivers deserve to be punished. The tears I saw in the viral video did not attract my sympathy. Wasn’t every motorist given sufficient warning about the law and what it provides? Those driving against traffic in Lagos are a menace to themselves, pedestrians, and oncoming motorists.
Finally, our concern should be about the weight and significance of the punishment that the Lagos traffic law provides. If a reckless driver causes death to others, try them under our criminal laws. If we think vehicles are the offenders, destroy them so that no one else operates them again. Government cannot be seen to be seizing and disposing of personal property for traffic offences. It will sooner transfer such vehicles to those who will operate them in a way that shows they do not value the vehicle.
Here is a second test of justice in this section of the law. Assume, for instance, that an offending motorist wounded or killed citizens and their vehicles are seized and auctioned. Will government use the proceeds of each vehicle auction to pay compensation to families of the deceased or medical bills of the wounded? What purpose does this section of the law achieve that cannot be achieved with heavy fines and imprisonment? This is assuming, as we suspect, that the Lagos State Government has tasted blood with its IGR harvests and now wants to become Oliver Twist.
Personal property should not be forfeited to government under any circumstance. If we allow this law to continue, we may well get to the point where government will seize and auction plots of land where buildings collapsed. We recommend that Lagos also considers another law to confiscate and auction a kitchen knife used by a partner to murder their spouse.
The Lagos traffic law is an assault on property rights and a hangover from the days of military dictatorship.
Another dimension
We live in a society where both Lagos authorities and citizens willfully oppress motorists through willful destruction of road signs and official negligence.
We observe that two things happen when roads are designed or created as one-way traffic lanes in Nigerian cities. Both Lagos and Abuja are typical examples.
Roadside vendors, scrap metal vendors, and street urchins vandalize cables, metal railings and outdoor boardings on our highways. Roadside vendors create bottlenecks to slow down traffic and entice motorists and passengers to buy their wares. Some use the dark hours to dig up holes on roads to create artificial bottlenecks. Cable and metal thieves also pinch bridge railings and support beams for traffic signs.
The most disheartening are government officials themselves. They sometimes, somehow, forget to install warning or diversion signs on the roads. There are motorists who swear that they are deliberate acts to promote official extortion. Without warning signs on those highways, motorists innocently drive into their waiting arms to be fleeced.
We have a long way to go.
