50% of road crashes in Nigeria are tyre induced – FRSC

THE Corps Marshal of Federal Road Safety Corps, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, on Wednesday disclosed that the corps have found out that over 50 per cent of road traffic crashes in Nigeria are tyre induced.

The FRSC boss stated this during a public hearing on “a bill for an act to make it mandatory for tyres to bear manufacturing and expiry dates and to prohibit the importation of used, substandard and expired tyres and other related matter (HB. 499).”

The Corps Marshal who was represented by Assistant Corps Marshal, Kayode Olagunju, said that, “investigation shows that the use of sub standard and or imported used tyres is responsible for the crashes.”

Speaking further, he said that, “the implications of this trend is not only alarming due to the multiplier effects of the crashes on the nation, but effectively spurred the corps to clamp down on sub standard expired tyre usage by motorists nationwide and to effectively achieve this aim, relevant stakeholders were galvamised, including the transport organisations and the Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON.”

While commending the House of Representatives for coming up with the bill, the Corps Marshal advised that the bill would need to empower the Nigeria Customs Service and all other agencies at the ports to impose stiff penalties on would be defaulters which will serve as a deterrent to importation.”

Section 1, 2 and 3 of the bill seek to make the manufacturers of tyres to compulsorily indicate: the date of production, expiry dates, logo and registration of the manufacturer on the tyre.