The Senate has urged the Nigeria Police Force, Federal Road Safety Corps and Vehicle Inspection Officers to clamp down on erring drivers of trucks and other articulated vehicles plying the nation’s highways.
The Senate gave the order following the rising rate of road accidents caused by articulated vehicles in the country.
It claimed that the vehicles were plying the roads without compliance with the minimum prescribed safety requirements.
The Senate’s directive was a sequel to a motion moved by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Local Content, Senator Teslim Folarin
Folarin claimed that in 2017, there were 779 road traffic collisions involving trailers and tankers.
He said the incidents resulted in 737 fatalities and 2,622 injuries.
He said the statistics implied that an average of two Nigerians was killed every day and seven seriously injured in 2017 as a result of trailer/tanker accidents.
He further noted that the articulated vehicles’ accidents accounted for 28 per cent of road accidents in Nigeria.
He expressed displeasure that despite the release of the safety guidelines and regulations by the FRSC, the drivers of the articulated vehicles continued to disobey the guidelines.
The Senate, therefore, directed its committee to investigate the adoption and implementation of the recommendations from the 2018 haulage Operators Stakeholders’ Summit among all relevant stakeholders.
It further urged the Federal Government to establish trailer parks and introduce weighbridges along the highways.
Meanwhile, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has said that the red chamber will on Tuesday next week consider the report of its ad hoc committee on security challenges with a view to resolving Nigeria’s security problems.
Lawan stated this at the plenary sequel to the consideration of a motion brought to the floor by Senator Aishatu Ahmed on the attacks on some Adamawa communities.
The Senate had, on January 29, 2020, set up the ad hoc committee chaired by the Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, to interface with the security agencies on the level of insecurity in the country and report back to the upper chamber within two weeks.
Lawan said the Senate would engage the executive arm of government on the resolutions of the ad hoc committee as contained in its report.
