Truck accidents: Way out

On the 18th of February, 2016, there was a report on the death of 23 secondary school students in Gaya Local Government Area of Kano State in an accident involving a truck and a bus. They were going on an excursion to a radio station. Another report had it that the abattoir/cattle Market and Abia Udele market were closed by the Abia State governor, Alex Otti, following a truck accident that left many dead in Aba on February 3, 2022. A loaded trailer lost control and fell into the abattoir located at Waterside, River area of Ogbor Hill, Aba. A news outlet also shared related news on the 23rd of December, 2021 that a gas truck, which had difficulty ascending a bridge, had a brake failure at Mokola roundabout, Ibadan, Oyo State. The victims were commercial drivers and motorcycle operators. An eyewitness said no fewer than 20 people lost their lives. In the same vein, some months ago, on the 16th of February, 2023, the Nigerian Tribune reported that six people were killed in an auto crash in Ganmo road in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State the previous day. The accident involved a Suzuki bus popularly called Korope in the area and DAF trailer loaded with onion coming from Sokoto State.

These are just some of the unpalatable news about the ceaseless accidents resulting in deaths on Nigerian highways involving articulated vehicles due to their falling off, either as a result of brake failures or losing control suddenly. The newspapers, the air waves and the social media are always flooded with this kind of news and hardly does a month pass without it. It’s either a container-laden truck falling on people inside a market or a truck crushing smaller vehicles in a traffic jam or even articulated vehicles containing goods falling off a bridge and landing on innocent people. These trucks are sometimes loaded with large containers to bring in goods from other countries or moving goods from a state to the other. There have been cases of trucks and trailers conveying diesel, kerosene and petrol bursting into flames after falling or pouring their contents on the roads endangering the lives of citizens who ignorantly look for avenues to get the content either to resell or for their own use not minding the danger. At each point in time, deaths occur. Many Nigerians have lost their lives via this route or get incapacitated for life.

It has been observed that some of these containers loaded with goods or other commodities fall off because they are not properly fastened to the parent truck carrying them. Rather than using strong ropes or irons to pin the goods inside these trucks or the containers firmly, they are rather put inside the trucks flippantly. The trucks do not have the stability and capacity to hold the goods or containers. You even see the containers shaking as the trucks move in some cases. In other cases, the containers are bigger than the trucks carrying them, some of the trailers are also not in good conditions. Many have bad brakes and the failure to service them as and when due results into vehicles acting up at bad times. Some of these drivers are also careless. Apart from possible hazard from the lackadaisical attitudes towards securing those containers and goods on the trucks, some of them coming from far distances do sleep while behind the wheels. After travelling far distances for hours or days, rather than parking and relaxing for a while before continuing the journey, they will rather keep driving, even while dozing. Maybe because they want to meet up with targets or the thought of getting to destinations on time despite all odds, no one knows the reason for the rush. They lose focus, to accidents and eventually many lives are lost. I have personally escaped being a victim of such as the driver of the truck veered off the highway narrowly missing the car I was in which was just directly in front of it. The driver slept off behind the wheels.

That being said, it is high time the government created a regulatory body whose duty will solely be to checkmate these vehicles, companies that own them, the drivers and their ways of operation. As it stands now, the Federal Road Corps (FRSC) and even officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in charge of traffic seem not to have a hold on this. There has been very few reports of a truck drivers arrested for reckless driving or not securing their trucks well. What you see on the roads are traffic officers collecting bribes from drivers. Trucks should never be allowed to pass through a bridge. Most of the bridges in Nigeria are not built to accommodate the weight of most of the trucks and trailers; they are built for cars and smaller vehicles. The weight of these trucks is massive and it is obvious this can cause a lot of problems even for other drivers and for the bridges themsevles. No container should be allowed to roam free on a truck at any point in time. In other countries, there is a certain amount of goods a certain truck can carry and there is nothing that will make the driver to exceed it. This can be copied with strict penalties in place to deal with anyone or any company that flouts the rules. There should be a point where the road worthiness of trucks could be checked before they can be allowed to go on the road. Any truck not certified ‘okay’ must not be allowed to move on the road. Various state governments can also come up with specific routes for these articulated vehicles and they should be made to adhere strictly to plying such routes. Truck barriers can be erected. It will make the drivers aware they have to slow down no matter the speed they’re coming with.