Suzuki Rolls Out New SX4 Sedan

By Seyi Gesinde

Suzuki has finally rolled out a four-door sedan version of the SX4.

Measuring 4,510mm in length, 1,730mm in width and 1,545mm in height, the sedan’s most prominent feature is its enlarged boot capacity that has 515 liters.

Suzuki’s new sedan is offered with a 107HP 1.6-liter engine that powers the car from nought to 62 mph (100km/h) in 10.7 seconds and on to a maximum speed of 112 mph (180 km/h).

According to Suzuki, in combined cycle driving, the SX4 saloon returns a combined fuel consumption of 41.5 mpg UK with CO2 emissions of 165g/km.

The SX4 saloon is similarly equipped to the SX4 1.6 GLX five-door hatchback and comes with six airbags, four electric windows, MP3/WMA compatible CD tuner, automatic air conditioning, 15-inch alloy wheels, keyless entry and start and heated door mirrors as standard.

Assist Accident Victims, Gwadabe Urges Nigerians - Honours 65-yr-old For Rendering Humanitarian Services

Nigerians have been urged to always offer humanitarian services to accident victims to safe their lives.

This appeal was made by the Chairman, Governing Board of the Federal Road Saferty Commission (FRSC), Colonel Lawan Gwadabe (rtd), when speaking at the inauguration of the “Ember Month” campaign in Kaduna.

At the event, he applauded the selfless service of a 65-year-old Alhaji Ahmadu Funtua, who he said for over 30 years, rendered free services to accident victims.

Gwadabe said Funtua turned his vehicle to ambulance for conveying accident victims to hospitals and the dead ones to the morgue.

He said for the 30 years Funtua had operated from Kawo Motor Park in Kaduna, he rendered humanitarian service with no cost or support from the state or Federal Government.

“Funtua would not only stop at the mortuary, but also makes series of radio announcements until the relations of those accident victims turn up,” Gwadabe said.
While presenting Funtua with a letter of recommendation, he urged Nigerians to imbibe his character and be willing to render humanitarian services to accidents victims.

He, however, said the FRSC would soon purchase more ambulances which would be placed at strategic locations in the coun try for rapid response to emergenciers during the ember months.

He informed that some heavy duty tow vehicles had been acquired to ensure the clearance of road obstruction on the highways.

ROADSENSE

Bad Road Networks (2)

“Transportation is a great enabler of economic growth, the lifeblood of commerce. It moves people to jobs and goods to the marketplace. Without strong transportation arteries, economies stagnate.”
Ray LaHood, US Transportation Secretary

Nigeria is blessed with all resources that allow an integrated transport system, yet, the transportation system of the country is predominantly by road. The road mode of transport alone is estimated to account for about 90 per cent mobility needs in the country while the other modes – namely air, rail, inland waterways and pipelines – account for the remaining 10 per cent.

This confirms the excessive pressure on road transport industry and the resultant corrosive effect on the economy. The total road network in Nigeria is estimated to be about 200,000km out of which the federal road is about 33,000km.Most federal roads are interstate with high traffic density and attendant road crashes while state roads are intrastate with their own share of traffic volume and crashes. The conditions of both the federal and state roads are perennially deplorable and potentially hazardous to safety – like federal, like states!

It is public knowledge that no single issue has dominated the sittings of the Senate of late than the appalling state of federal road network countrywide. Responding to a debate on the floor of the Senate penultimate week on the near total collapse of the nation’s road infrastructure, Senate President, David Mark reportedly captured the nightmarish road conditions thus: “The state of our roads is terribly bad and totally unacceptable for the level at which we want to go. It is a terrible condition. I don’t know what the Ministry of Works is doing and I don’t know how much they have been able to do.

“Everybody here is complaining of the bad state of road in his or her own area. Everybody! There is nobody who will tell you that we have good roads or he or she has good roads in his or her own senatorial district and yet we voted money over and over for the roads in this country.” What a lamentation!

Indeed, I found it lamentable that the Senate President could be bemoaning the true facts that the Federal Ministry of Works has abdicated its extant responsibility for road infrastructural development as if these roads just fell overnight into the present despicable state of disrepair. Also, it would be recalled that the media, last week, quoted members of House of Representatives Committee on Works as saying that the “slow pace of bureaucracy and the seasonal nature of road construction projects were responsible for the bad conditions of road across the country.” I’m sorry.

This honourable statement of excuse looks like tokenism. Armsfree Ajanaku, writing in The Guardian, Sunday, October 25, 2009 on the state of federal roads pointedly quipped: “If the state of roads in Nigeria was to be used to assess the performance of government at all levels since Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999, the verdict will be woeful failure; every level of government will score an F9.”
To be continued.