The LASG Road Worthiness Test and The Integrity Issues

“I hereby certify that I have examined the vehicle below, which in all respects, conforms with the…”

If you have ever checked the LASG road worthiness certificate over the years, you would have seen the preceding stated words.

So, when in a discussion with Environmental Lagos Platform in 2021, the Director, Lagos State Vehicle Inspection Service; Engr. Akin-George Fashola alluded to plans for the proper implementation of that statement, it was an integrity issue that Lagos State was putting to rest.

Why issue a certificate in proxy, when it actually says you have inspected the vehicle?

Uproar greeted the decision when announced in 2021, and as 2022 came in and the road worthiness test became a reality, the uproar were tinged with agony and complaints.

Typically, Environmental Lagos Platform went to investigate.

In an exercise that lasted a duration of about 9 hours; at 2 centres on different days, with a span of 12 days apart, we discovered

1. A comprehensive test.

From the check for caution stand, fire extinguisher, extra tyre, jack, etc, through the beam test for headlights and the shock absorber/axial load, suspension tests to roller brake test, the undercarriage check and bad road simulation test (to see how easily a wheel can come off), the road worthiness test is giving a vehicle the sort of comprehensive test that it does not usually undergo.

Such tests at commercial diagnostic test centres are either too expensive or there is the belief they are meant for cars of certain cost and manufacture-year.

Many people only check wheel/tyre areas, when they want to embark on a long-distance journey.

2. A welfare angle.

The road worthiness test portrays LASG as caring about the residents of the state. Many people are carried away by a car that still has a neat paint-job and moves them around, but the test allows you to see what you are driving.

It gives you the chance of knowing (not assuming) and working on prevention of fatality.

This way, LASG is having an input in curbing needless loss of lives.

3. Commendations and complaints.

The people we spoke with said, it was a good initiative, but there is a downside, it takes too long.

There was praise, but it is on a conveyor of pain.

A married woman got to a centre at 6.02am, and was not attended to till 10.12am.

And that is a good time.

The waiting and test process at some centres takes 6-7 hours.

The exercise is fast becoming a god; consuming avoidable sacrifices.

There is the issue of failure, and the vehicle has to be taken away for the faults to be fixed, and brought back.

A vehicle was alleged to have been failed 3 times. That is 4 visits. That is a lot of wasted hours, even with re-testing being given some priority.

The actual test process is about 10-15 minutes, but as with some policies of LASG in time past (which ELP has pointed out), it seems this is another policy that was not properly thought-out.

It is a new year, people are trying to ramp up their economic/revenue flow, after expending over the festive period; the last thing they need in an already stressful city, is an excruciating loss of productive hours.

There is something called microcosm-testing and scenario-enactment, and it was clear from the onset; that this would bring the pains, with the way it was laid out.

We have about 27 centres for a state that has more than an estimated 2 million registered vehicles

From what we observed, the centres conduct an average of 65 tests daily.

There is a 30-day grace period from payment for the certificate to the actual testing, which is supposed to cover Mondays to Saturdays. But some centres do not operate on Saturdays.

So, let us do the maths

65 tests × 27 centres × 22 days × 12 months.

That is 463,320 vehicles tested in a year.

About a fifth of the vehicles required to be tested in a year.

This means, 5 times the number of present centres would be needed.

WHY DIDN’T LASG GET THE CENTRES IN PLACE FIRST?

Why mar a good initiative with shoddy preparation?

An exercise that needs about 150 centres, relatively spread within the LGAs/LCDAs is working with 27 centres.

4. The other half.

While one integrity issue is being resolved by this exercise, it throws up a larger one.

Why is the test not all-encompassing?

Commercial vehicles with terrible brakes, broken lights, bad suspension, no work-tool, etc, that tend to be major obstruction to flow of vehicles and inhibitor of efficient traffic management system in Lagos State are seemingly not part of this road worthiness test.

In the 9 hours that this investigation took, across 2 different days and at 2 different centres, only the mini-buses were seen.

The bigger 14/18-seater buses were a no-show.

There are already tales of bribery and corruption at some centres. When you throw in the long waiting hours, and then the seeming partiality (which has led people to say it is all about revenue generation from a particular category of vehicle owners), LASG would need to clarify and sort a lot of things

Otherwise, it would be another good policy badly implemented.

And it would be one too many in the line of those…