60% of road crashes in Ogun caused by articulated vehicles —FRSC

THE Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Clement Oladele, in Ogun, said about 60 per cent of road accidents in the state were caused by drivers of articulated vehicles.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Oladele made this statement known on Tuesday, when he paid a courtesy visit to members of Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ogun Council, in Abeokuta.

He explained that, most of the accidents that happened on the highways in the state were due to excessive speed, which could have been avoided.

According to him, though, Ogun is blessed with highways; it is however, among the 10 most dangerous highways in the country, going by road accidents recorded in recent times.

He said that some of the highways included Lagos /Ibadan, Lagos /Abeokuta, Abeokuta /Sagamu and Odeda /Ibadan.

The sector commander said that, 32 road traffic crashes were recorded in the state in August and it rose to 47 in September.

Oladele expressed the commitment of the command to get to the root, because of the high rate of road crashes in the state.

“We have a platform which state that; for every operator that has minimum of five vehicles, it must register with road safety and annually, we certify them.

“When you don’t meet the basic requirements, we decertify you.

“We recognise that almost 60 per cent of these crashes that cause death, were caused by these articulated vehicles, so, we want to get to the root, so as to address it.

“The FRSC has started to remove abandoned vehicles; we have to ensure that there is no obstruction that can cause road crashes.

“We want to leave the township patrol to the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE), so as to face where most of the crashes are happening.

“We want to mobilise our strength and face the highway but that does not mean that occasionally, when we see issues that happen in the  town, we won’t attend to them.

“We will try to see how we can empower TRACE, for it to become bigger, stronger and to be able to tackle the urban challenges.”

Oladele said that FRSC in Ogun had prepared a strategic document, which would be driven by the people, to reduce road accident and loss of lives on the highways.

He said that the document would have the inputs of all stakeholders, adding that the governor would be fully involved, to devise means on how to make the roads safer.

On speed limit device, he said that majority of the drivers had yet to use the device; however, it was introduced by FRSC to reduce road accidents.

According to him, between Oct. 1 and Oct 29, we have stopped 3,670 vehicles in the state and only 43 of them have speed limiting devise.

“If we have impounded these vehicles, maybe we would have grounded the economy of the state.

“We have encouraged transport unions, to contact the vendors and be paying by installment to enable them purchase the devise.

“By Jan. 1, we are going to arrest any vehicle that does not have speed limiter.”

Earlier, Alhaji Kunle Olayeni, the chapel Chairman, commended the FRSC command in the state for ensuring that roads in the state were safe.

Olayeni expressed the readiness of the media, to collaborate with the FRSC in order to ensure considerable reduction in road accidents.