The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), in conjunction with Shell Nigeria Gas Limited, has organised a one-day sensitisation programme for motorists and other stakeholders in Ota, a suburb of Ogun State.
The programme, tagged: Promoting Safe Use of Tyres, was in furtherance to FRSC tyre’s campaign across the country.
The host FRSC’s Unit Commander, Assistant Corps Commander Leye Adegboyega, said the programme was meant to enable motorists get acquainted with necessary information about tyre usage and when to discard them to avoid accidents and deaths on the roads.
The campaign, he said, was imperative because of the growing number of crashes caused by tyre blowouts or bursts on the highways.
Road safety, Adegboyega said, is a public health concern which affects everyone, regardless status or position. “Globally, tyre bursts are a top cause of road traffic crashes and Nigeria is not an exception,” the FRSC chief said.
Adegboyega recalled that between 2011 and 2015, about 5,288 road crashes occurred across the country because of bad, worn-out or expired tyres, saying 70 cases of road crashes, caused by tyre bursts, were recorded between this year February 29 and April 8.
He said SON and FRSC were on Federal Government’s instruction to work together to ensure sanity in the use of the tyres across the country.
He appealed to the tyre dealers or sellers to store them inside shops or in dry environments that would not exposed them to sources of ozone (sunlight, arc welding, mercury vapour lamps), bad weather hydrocarbon pollution (diesel, petrol, grease) and ultraviolet radiation.
He said the storage space of tyres should be stacked on top of each other in piles not higher than 1.2 metres (four feet), preferably on pallets for a short term.
He said the agency would raids on those selling used tyres according to the Federal Government policy on banning on the importation of used tyres.
According to him, the figures are rising and the cases are almost always fatal when they occur.
Adegboyega said tyres were the major link between vehicle and the road, adding that tyres were the only components in the vehicle that touch the road.
The representative of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Mr Enebi Shaibu Onucheyo, urged tyre dealers, manufacturers, importers and sellers to support government’s efforts at eradicating substandard tyres in the country.
The SON chief noted that the programme was imperative because of recent accidents involving tyre-related issues on Nigerian road.