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Motorists Faces Up To N50,000 In Fines For Broken Down Vehicles Obstructing Highway – LASTMA
Motorists faces up to N50,000 in fines including the cost of towing, for broken down vehicles obstructing highway – LASTMA.
To prevent obstruction, LASTMA noted that drivers are expected to push their broken down vehicles to a safe and reasonable location.
Motorists whose broken down vehicles hamper free traffic flow or cause inconveniences to other road users faces up to Fifty Thousand Naira (N50,000) in fines, including the cost of towing, under the Lagos State’s Transport Reform Law (TSRL 2018).
While urging motorists to conduct proper checks on their vehicles before any trip, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) noted that drivers are expected to push their broken down vehicles to a safe and reasonable location.
Excerpts from the State’s Transport Reform Law (No 36) shared by LASTMA shows that commercial drivers faces up N50,000 while private car owners will be fined N25,000 for abandoning broken down vehicles on the highway.
“If you have fulfilled all checks and the vehicle breaks down momentarily, the motorists have the responsibility to find every avenue to get that vehicle off the road such that it does not in any way reduce the size of the carriage way i.e (reducing three lanes to two).”
“All these factors are to be considered for not causing any form of impediment or obstruction. And when this is done, it has assumed that the Motorist has made effort of getting the vehicle off the road.”
“Otherwise, if the motorist leaves the vehicle on the road and pending to it without reckoning for the fact that it will impede traffic flow or cause inconveniences to other road users, that person has violated the provision of the traffic law and will be subjected to penalty in accordance with that portion of the Law.”
“So what is expected is for anyone whose vehicle breakdown is to make effort to push it off the road to a safe and reasonable location where it is not going to hamper free traffic flow or cause any likely danger to other road users.”
“Our system of penalty administration does not require that fines are issued outrightly, it is a court referral that will be issued to a mobile court under a competent Magistrate who will decide whether it is substantive enough for that offender to be penalized or set free, and if He decides that the Offender will be penalized, the penalty will be in form of monetary fine or any other punishment like community service to be paid.”
