The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has thrown its weight behind the decision of the Lagos State Government to restrict the movements of trucks and other articulated vehicles to between 9.00 pm and 6 am, as part of measures to reduce the rate of accidents on the highways as well as check the level of gridlock in the State.
FRSC Lagos Sector Commander, Mr Olusegun Ogungbemide, in his reaction to the policy while speaking with the media yesterday in Lagos, said the pronouncement was a step in the right direction, as the safety of other road users was being endangered by the recklessness of truck and trailer drivers on highways in the state.
Ogungbemide said the measure would ensure safety and enhance traffic management adding that, what was paramount was the safety of road users.
He disclosed that the collateral damage and human lives trucks claim should make any government control their movement, adding that nothing can be exchanged for lives being lost on the roads.
The Sector Commander said the huge casualties that been recorded in truck-related accidents are mostly caused by human error adding that many of the trucks and trailers operating at the ports do not have minimum safety standards.
According to him, the last time he led his team to ports, only five per cent of trucks have a minimum safety standard while about two per cent have headlamps.
Ogungbemide stated that the FRSC would collaborate with the Lagos State Government with a view to reducing road traffic crashes and fatalities, saying that most of the accidents on the roads are caused by the lack of proficiency of the drivers, apart from bad roads and bad vehicles.
He said by the time the sector is availed with the template of various routes to which trucks and trailers will be restricted and the durations for their operations,the FRSC will work on it and ensure that whosoever flouts the rule is sanctioned in line with the law.
“We are going to be doing sampling enforcement that will sensitise other road users to show that government is quite serious with the new policy’’, according to him.
He said that compromise and lack of patriotism in the call-up-system for trucks and trailers, in and out of the ports had affected a lot of things, but pointed out that FRSC will work with Lagos State Government to reduce killings on the road by trucks.
It will be recalled that the Lagos State Government on Wednesday at a stakeholders’ meeting organised by its Ministry of Transportation announced plans to restrict trucks and trailers movement to nighttime operations and dedicated routes in the State.