Rockview Hotel takes safety beyond guest rooms

The management of Rockview Hotel Apapa, Lagos, in collaboration with the Federal Road Safety Commission, Lagos State Command, recently synergized to give the hotel’s drivers and staff intensive training programme on safety and defensive driving, designed to shape their driving orientation to be in line with the global best practices.

It was a week-long training session attended by over 50 staff of the hotel including its management. Rockview Hotel has a tradition of training its drivers on safety driving annually through the FRSC, a practice that started since 1996 at its head office in Abuja. But the hotel decided to extend same gesture to its Lagos branch to ensure equitable beneficiary by other drivers as well.

The management by this philosophy is concerned about the safety of its drivers as it values their lives. Cynthia Asogwa, commandant, FRSC Lagos State Command, led a team of the commission in delivering the lectures and safety demonstrations.

In her lecture titled: ‘’Safety and Defensive Driving’’, she defined it as ‘’the positive attitude of the drivers toward other road users whereas defensive is a good way to ensure that one is not caught in a road accident.’’

The training is intended to teach participants to anticipate dangers and how to avert them, Asogwa said and urged the participants to take the training seriously. She advised the drivers to always be in good condition of health, inspect their vehicles to ensure they are in good condition to avoid accident.

She said a defensive driver does not allow circumstances to overwhelm him as he controls his environment while driving. She identified the secrets of safe driving as leaving the departure point and arriving at the destination safely without excuses.

According to her, creating a space of 10 meters away from a moving vehicle, avoiding anyone putting a driver under undue stress, resting before embarking on a journey, driving only when it is sensible and coordinated are important for safety of a driver.

Asogwa stressed the need for defensive driving by drivers which include; being disciplined on the road, driving only when the weather permits, obeying traffic, being cautious and fastening the seat-belt always.

The resource person also laid emphasis on stress management in driving, noting that the human faces stressful situation generated by himself, environment, cosmic life as managing stress to keep life moving is very imperative.

She defined stress as the interaction between the situation and the individual – how to manage it to ensure it does not affect his mental or health condition. Stress becomes positive when you are calm, as a reaction can be positive negative depending on how it is managed.

Stress has great effect on individual person such as poor health potentiality, low work output, economic wastage, high mortality, high rate of occupational accident as well as broken and hardship prone families.

And the symptoms of stress are; restlessness, respiratory problem, unexplainable sweating, loss of weight, lack of appetite, reduced sexual potency and sleeplessness.

To combat stress, Asogwa advised the following antidotes: having better attitude to life, taking good care of oneself, living a contented life about ones work, good time management.

Importantly, the training programme also serves as a platform for recognizing the best driver of Rockview Hotel for the year. Messrs Ihemegbulem Peter and Okoye Remigus emerged excellent as Rockview Hotel Apapa’s 2016 Best Drivers of the Year. They were presented with award certificates by the management through the FRSC official, Cynthia Asogwa. They got one month salary upfront each in appreciation.

The award recipients expressed gratitude for the honours done them and promised to sustain the success and confidence, which the management of the hotel reposed in them.

In a brief remark, Gabriel Ayomah, the hotel’s general manager, said the essence of the programme is to recognise the best performance of the drivers and their input toward the growth of company. He tasked the awardees to remain focused on their job.