Truckers have blamed human factors, bad roads and fake spare parts as reasons for 340 accident cases involving trucks and tankers recorded between January and July 2022.
The President of the Association of Maritime Road Transport Owners, Remy Ogungbemi, in an exclusive chat with THE PUNCH in Lagos on Monday, admitted that there were some human factors responsible for the situation.
He also said that the condition of most of the roads should be looked into.
“All these things have to with the environment. What I mean is, if you look at the conditions of the roads, you will know that most of the roads are not motorable. There are also some human factors.”
He urged the government to look into the conditions of the roads to help prevent some of these accidents. “For example, you look between Ijora and Constain, about three trucks fall there daily.
“The temporary measure they put recently has reduced the rate at which trucks fall there. And if you also look from TinCan port to Mike 2, there is a portion there that has totally collapsed. “
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency had, in a document over the weekend, said that 340 accidents were recorded amongst trucks and tankers between January and July 2022.
“For truck and tanker cases, 340 accidents were recorded in Lagos between January and July of 2022. Of the 340 accidents, 112 trucks/tankers were involved in cases of broken down articulated vehicles, while 201 trucks/tankers were involved in cases of outright accidents; and 27 trucks/tankers fell in the period under review.”
Speaking further, Ogungbemi said there was negligence on the side of truck drivers.
“However, I am not saying this to defend the attitude of some of some of our drivers. There are human factors but at the same time, conditions of the roads are also factors for the accidents you see.”
According to him, “The breakdown can also be linked to a whole lot of inferior spare parts that are littered all around the area. Some of the spare parts are not good enough. The materials and the spare parts that we are buying are not 100 per cent genuine and we don’t have the mechanism to know the one that is genuine and fake. “
Also speaking, the Head of Operations, Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, Stephen Okafor, blamed some officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority for fueling some of the accidents
“Most of them are caused by officers of some government agencies. Most of those drivers, at the sight of these officers, start running and may have accidents as a result. We have had cases like that too.”
