TIPS ON HOW TO BE ROAD FRIENDLY

"IF YOU DESIRE A SAFER ROADS, DON'T JUST IMAGINE IT, BE A BETTER AND FRIENDLY ROAD USER"

Driving, commuting and being a pedestrian on the road can certainly be challenging, sometimes fun and most times frustrating. It's fun when you can cruise above the speed limit without any hindrance on the road, and can be frustrating when the traffic is snarled and chaotic, a situation where getting to your destination is like battling with other road users.

The fact is, the situation will mostly be frustrating because we can't wish away traffic, considering the high number of people using the road network daily. Traffic is what we unknowingly wanted in our society. Our quest for development, economic growth, survival and rural-urban migration has increased the rate at which we troop out every day in search of better living conditions.

However, when traffic is chaotic, it speaks badly about how our driving attitude is on the road, displaying road lawlessness, lack of friendliness, coordination and connection amongst road users. Let's take a look at the pictures below for better understanding .

What we have in the pictures above is a clear difference between road lawlessness and lawfulness and a display of road friendliness, coordination and connection between road users.

The effects of what is likely to happen to those in the latter picture are; short life span, as a result of too much stress of traffic gridlock, couple with noise pollution emanating from unnecessary blasting of horns; time that would have better been spent productively will be wasted in traffic congestion, resulted in an economic downward spiral. 

Getting things right on our roads is not a rocket science, but a rather simple arithmetic of road friendliness among road users which leads to better communication, coordination and connection on the road for easy movement even in traffic.

Here are six tips on how to BE ROAD FRIENDLY.

1. OBEY AND RESPECT THE RULE OF THE ROAD: > Commuting shouldn't be too difficult when the rules of the road are strictly adhered to. Being road friendly requires you as a road user to obey and respect the rules of the road, do everything stipulated by road traffic law to ensure safe, sane and easy flow of traffic. Doing otherwise can result into lawlessness, chaos, disorder and road traffic crashes will escalate. 

2. BE ROAD SAFETY CONCIOUS AT ALL TIMES:> Being road safety conscious at all times means to have safety as an imaginary friend that rides/walks with you every time you're on the road.

3. SHARE THE ROAD RESPONSIBLY:> The road is meant to be shared with other road users for sane, safe and ease of movement. So share the road legally, reasonable and responsibly with total concentration behind the wheel, reasonable speed, driving without recklessness and due consideration to other road users.

 4. BE KIND ON THE ROAD:> Road kindness is another way of being road friendly. Showing kindness to other road users can be as little as allowing others to merge into traffic and can as well be as difficult as keeping calm in the face of provocation from other road users. Whatever it is for you, never lose patient and never stop your act of road kindness as it goes a long way in making road life easy.

5. HAVE THE COURTESY TO SAY SORRY WHEN YOU MAKE MISTAKE: > Mistake they say has no master, know one can be too intelligent, brilliant or perfect that they cannot make mistakes. Road hazards often happen, first, as a result of driver's mistakes, then turn to bad habit if not corrected. Anyone can make mistakes on the road, but being road friendly is to say sorry either by slowing down to offer your apology to the person or wave your hand as you drive off, and make sure you do your best that such mistake(s) doesn't reoccur cause if it does, it's no more a mistake but an habit.

6aBE A SAFE DRIVER:> Safe driving is an act of good deed, because you're preventing road traffic crash(s) that can take someone's life and that life could be yours.

Road friendliness is to promote effective communication, connection, coordination and better understanding between road users, be motorists, passengers or pedestrians. For safe, sane and easy flow of human and vehicular traffic on the road.