The Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, on Tuesday , June 14, revealed that the already congested Nigerian roads causing accidents and claiming human many lives, will be more congested in 2016.
The commission said about 10.6 million registered vehicles are estimated to ply Nigerian roads nationwide in 2016, a number, it said exerts enormous pressure on available roads in the country.
FRSC Warri Unit Commander, Isha Seidu, revealed this at a two-day seminar titled: ‘Safety Training for Tankers Drivers’ by the Warri chapter of the Petroleum Tankers Drivers (PTD) of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) held in Ekpan, Delta State.
Seidu, who was represented by Head of Operation, Warri Unit Command, FRSC, Superintendent Route Commander, Olumide Solomon, said the country required a multifaceted approach to avoid deaths through road crashes as the number of vehicles plying available roads in the country is overwhelming.
He explained that three major factors including human, mechanical and environmental were responsible for road crashes. Of the three factors, he said human factor was responsible for 90 per cent of road crashes through reckless driving, over speeding, poor health, distraction and competing among drivers.
He said:“In Nigeria, statistics show that we had approximately 6.6 million registered vehicles that plied Nigerian roads in 2010. An estimated 9.8 million and 10.6 registered vehicles are on Nigeria roads in 2015 and 2016 respectively.”
“This, as expected, would exert enormous pressure on roads available infrastructure in the country, requiring a multifaceted approach to avoid deaths on transits which explained why this training is timely and a commendable efforts on the part of PTD”, he said.
National Chairman of PTD, Soliman Akani Oladiti, who was represented byLucky Ossesua (1st vice national deputy chairman), said the training was critical as a measure to drastically reduce road crashes among tanker drivers in the zone.
