HEAVY DUTY TRUCKS: THE OJUELEGBA AND SHAGAMU TRAGEDY

Road accident is a common phenomenon in every city around the world but the rate of occurrence is what differs. In developing countries, poor road network and poorly maintained roads are factors that contributes to road accidents. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) some 1.2 million ...
people are killed in traffic accidents around the world with Africa having the highest share. WHO Chief, Margaret Chan said in a statement “road traffic fatalities take an unacceptably high toll, particularly on poor people in poor countries”. However, it is not only poor roads that lead to accidents, drivers attitudes are a major factor of road accident.

Heavy duty truck accident are the most devastating road accident (so calledtrailer accident) they cause massive deaths tolls , causes gridlock on roads for days and sometimes destroy properties worth millions of naira most especially when it involves fire outbreak (e.g the fuel tanker explosion at Owode — Ijako Area of Ogun State on 17th November 2015). We are also reminded of the accident that involves  container falling from a truck at the Ojulegba Bridge in Lagos State towards the end of the year 2015.

The fundamental question is apart from poor roads, what are the human factors causing road accidents among heavy duty truck drivers in Nigeria and what can be done to reduce it drastically? I have identified just one factor for the sake of this article which needs to be looked into critically, it’s poor maintenance culture!

Most heavy duty trucks in Nigeria are poorly maintained, the owners of such trucks believes that the only reason why the trucks were bought in the first place is for profit making. It is also important to note that over 90% of truck drivers are illiterate with very little knowledge of what it entails to maintain a truck properly. They do not care to report or replace parts that have worn out immediately (e,g tyres which ought to be replaced every 6 months), they fail to check their breaks to see whether or not it’s working properly. Their lackadaisical attitude towards the truck engine is alarming. Perhaps they check it once a while and continue to use it even when it’s obvious that the engine’s efficiency is very low. To make matters worse they use it for long journey (e.g Lagos to Sokoto). In addition to that, the required tonnage of a truck is usually“doubled” due to greediness (for example a 30 tonnage truck can be used for a 40tns, 50tns or 60tns load at times) all these leads to the damage of the truck body and aisle which may result to accident, in addition it affects the roads which normally are not constructed for such tonnage carrying-capacity. What about the truck springs, you will discover that some springs are already chopped up and flat (springs are more or less a shock absorber to which the weight of the truck load is felt first ) once a spring breaks there is bound to be a major catastrophe on the road. We are not even going to the area of smoking and drinking, that’s another topic for another day but it is obvious that majority of these drivers smoke and drink heavily while driving. They lack road ethics and do not understand road signs and laws. It is fair to say that because of their illiteracy, they find truck safety check or maintenance a less important task . The tragic event at Ojuelegba, Sagamu-Ore road are a constant reminder of the poor attitude of the so-called heavy duty truck drivers. My question is are we going to continue to allow these set of people handle the most important sector of our economy ? If not let us look into this problem and let’s build a business around it. I guess it’s high time we had a “Truck Driving School” with a vision for excellence.