To ensure the safety of life and property, Lagos State Government restricted daytime movement of trailers and other articulated vehicles. The operators have risen up against the government, absolving themselves of blame. ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE and OLALEKAN AYENI report.
Picture for a minute a container falling from a height. Imagine the fate of whatever it may fall on. This is no fiction. On Ojuelegba bridge, a container, poorly latched to a trailer fell and crushed a Sport Utility Van (SUV) below, going under the bridge, killing the three occupants. It was a depressing sight, which prompted the government to act fast to stem the recklessness of truck, trailer and tanker drivers.
With over 200 deaths recorded in the third quarter of the year, half of which were caused by containerised trucks or petroleum tankers, there perhaps may not be any other nation with such a disturbing accident trend.
To stem the scourge, government restricted daytime movement of articulated vehicle from 6am to 9pm.
Old wine, new bottle
The law itself is not new. It is one of the extant laws of the state. The immediate past administration enforced it somewhat between 2008 and 2009 but soft pedalled on its enforcement in its second term.
The Akinwunmi Ambode administration is dusting up the law to reduce road carnage. Those who flout the law risk the seizure of their vehicles, or the payment of fine, or both.
The government’s determination to enforce the law with the support of the security and road management agencies is unsettling the operators. Rising from the State Security Council meeting, Police Chief Fatai Owoseni said his men would strictly enforce the law.
But Owoseni’s declaration has led to a protest with trailer and tanker drivers embarking on strike action to protest the directive.
Though the petroleum tanker drivers under the aegis of PTD have since returned to work and complying by staying off the road, truck/trailer drivers operating from the ports refused all entreaties to return to work last Friday.
They said they won’t return to work because the restriction has imperilled their lives and the safety of the cargoes they carry.
Their stance is already raising the blood pressure of importers whose goods are being delayed by the impasse.
Pleas and arguments
The operators are calling on the government to rescind its decision. They claimed the order did not consider the security of the drivers and the safety of their cargoes. They alleged that the drivers are attacked at night by armed robbers, and their goods and vehicles stolen.
Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Depot Owners and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), unit of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), and their counterpart in the containerised business, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), urged the government to reverse the order for the security of their drivers and the products they are conveying across the country.
AMATO’s National President Chief ‘Remi Ogungbemi said the security of the drivers and the products are not guaranteed at night.
The insecurity, Ogungbemi added, is worsened by the deplorable condition of roads across the country, and poor road visibility.
He urged Governor Ambode to consider these factors and rescind the restriction order to enable articulated vehicle drivers like other motorists enjoy their profession like other colleagues at day time and without harm.
The AMATO chief also challenged the Federal Government to encourage operators by facilitating loans for the purpose of purchasing new vehicles instead of importing fairly used.
This, he said, will make the phasing out of aging trucks by the union and the FRSC easy.
The operators also demanded a park for trailers/tankers, adding that this would enable the drivers to rest. Ogungbemi, said stress and fatigue contribute immensely to accidents. “A parking space would among other benefits, guarantee access to the FRSC, Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) and other security agencies to inspect vehicles before allowing them to proceed on their journey,” Ogungbemi said.
PTD National Vice-Chairman Mr Solomon Kilanko, challenged the Lagos State Government to tackle the hoodlums and Area boys scourge before enforcing the order. He said it would amount to double jeopardy if the drivers, who deserves to be protected by the government are exposed to danger from hoodlums who lurk in the dark to attack them and hijack their vehicles.
He said: “Bad roads and threats of attacks at night make the new directive more harmful than helpful to drivers.”
MOMAN Executive Secretary, Mr Obafemi Olawore, said major marketers would strengthen the training and retraining of their drivers on safety standards as part of measures to reduce incessant accidents.
Expressing worry over the spate of accidents, Olawore pledged the association’s readiness to improve the checking of both mechanical and human factors of their members right from the loading point to complement the efforts of the FRSC.
The Secretary, Depot Owners Association of Nigeria (DOAN), Dr Mark Anamali, said the association would ensure that rickety vehicles are phased out of the roads before the end of the year.
A medical doctor, Ibiyemi Olusoji, said the order restricting movement of articulated drivers to night travels would cause more harm than good as fatigued drivers on long distance trips are most likely to fall asleep on the wheels and crash the vehicle.
“Ordinarily the night is designed for sleeping. A driver who is banned from moving at daytime and did not rest till he begins his trip at night, won’t be able to get to Ibadan, Oyo State, before fatigue will set in and this could cause accident,” Olusoji said.
A safety expert and founder of Safety Without Borders (SWB), a non-government organisation, Mr Patrick Adenusi, said the order banning road movement by truckers is wrong headed.
According to him, the order has inadvertently isolated the truck drivers as the cause of accidents.
For him, as part of investigations meant to curtail accidents, truck drivers rather than being vilified, ought to be questioned on the challenges they coped with before the accident occured.
Listing the Area Boys as “a major unidentified agent” of road accidents, Adenusi, painting a scenario said: “These boys would swoop on a truck driver and demanded to be paid, as if such fees are sacrosanct. If the driver refused, these boys would go behind the driver and remove the air hose, which controls the braking system and if this happens, the driver in trying to avoid being attacked by the boys, would accelerate and if he got to a point where he might need to apply the brake and it fails, an accident results.
“Most times, we do not talk to the truck drivers. We need to talk to them, we need to know, as only this would indicate our readiness to stop accidents.”
Adenusi equally advocated for aggressive driving education among Nigerians.
Describing Nigerian drivers as “one of the most unruly around the world,”Adenusi said statistics has shown that over 90 per cent of Nigerian drivers are “grossly indisciplined.”
In Nigeria, less than 10 per cent of drivers stay on their lanes and this has been identified as a major cause of accident.
“Imagine a reckless driver swerving in front of a trailer loaded with Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), or a fully loaded containerised trailer, any attempt to avoid such sudden swerve could spell disaster but that carnage could have been avoided, if every driver had been fully sensitised about responsible driving.
“It is standard global practice, when you are on a single lane, you remain on your lane, if you are going on two lanes, you stay on the second lane and if you are travelling on the three-lane road, you stay on the third lane, but here, you see drivers move indiscriminately without any regard to lane discipline,” he said.
Blame should also go to the truck owners, many of who left their vehicles unmaintained. “It is left to imagination what can begin to happen if the state government fully implements this law, with over 60 percent of all articulated vehicles on our roads lacking headlight and virtually all roads in the state poorly lighted by street light.”
Restriction, no solution
Adenusi and other experts believed that the restriction is not what the state and indeed the country needs to get out of the woods in terms of crashes of articulated vehicles.
Citing other parts of the world where all manners of vehicles were allowed to make use of the road at all times, the SWB chief said the law could be contested as it precludes the right of some certain group of people who are professionals in their own right to safety, a right, which the government duly owes them as citizens.
“If we say trucks can’t move on Lagos roads at daytime, what happens to those trucks carrying sands to and from the Eko Atlantic City, most of which plies Western Avenue at daytime?”
“Let government tackle the menace called Area boys, and you are likely to see a dramatic reduction in the rate of accidents especially ones involving articulated vehicles,” he said.
Adenusi called for the declaration of emergency on the state of road network in the country. If the road network is fitted with adequate infrastructure, there would be a reduction in accidents.
He urged the government to revisit the truck road – Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, saying most drivers take alternative roads like the Western Avenue because the truck road is bad. If this road which had collapsed is fixed, it would reduce the stress on alternative routes and this would result in a reduction in accidents, he added.
