Laws to restrict heavy-duty trucks please!

Paul Arhewe
07/07/2011

According to statistics recently released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Nigeria is named as the 191 out of 192 countries in the world with unsafe roads. The death rate from road traffic accidents for our country is pegged at 162 per 100,000 populations. The above statistics reflects the many deadly accidents witnessed in Nigeria, especially in densely populated states like Lagos.

What makes the situation intolerable is that if laws are enacted to restrict heavy-duty trucks like trailers and tankers from plying busy roads during day time, many of these deadly accidents could be prevented. The rate at which these long vehicles fall and cause accidents when they are on motion is on the high side, especially as the rainy season has left majority of expressways covered with flood. The many potholes in our roads, some as deep as those trenches dug by combatant troops during the civil war, have made matter worse; causing accidents in a rapid sequence.

These dead traps are not only endangering the lives of commuters and users of roads in the country, but causing unending traffic deadlocks that keep workers stranded, resulting in loss of manpower working hours. In many countries, these heavy-duty trucks are only permitted to travel at night when the roads are free of smaller vehicles; hence reducing deadly road crash. In a not too pleasant experience last week, other commuters and I escaped death by a whisker around 10pm in Festac Town, along Badagry Expressway in Lagos when a trailer that was fully loaded with cement in front of our commercial bus suddenly entered a pothole and went down lying on its side.

It spilled its load across the road as the driver couldn’t successfully control the truck. Passengers started pushing themselves to outwit one another in jumping out from the bus, thinking that the trailer would go up in flames. In that commotion, many of them sustained injuries. Leaving that scene some few minutes later, in the same bus, we met another trailer conveying a container in the same position that we left the former. This also caused an enormous traffic gridlock. The above incidents are only two cases of the many caused by heavy-duty trucks which commuters witnessed on daily basis; with many of them usually turning deadly. These truck drivers in their recklessness, see themselves as kings of the road and most times, in haste to beat traffic jam, tend to struggle roads with small vehicles. They have not only constituted themselves to bullies on our roads, but seen as contractual agents for dispatching many souls to the great beyond.

Even, the lauded government LAGBUS transport scheme in Lagos is not spared from these reckless displays on our roads. Throwing caution to wind some LAGBUS drivers have formed the habit of speeding above the required limit, endangering not only the lives of their passengers, but other road users. Some countries have enacted laws to curb the recklessness of truck drivers by forbidding them from plying roads during day time. For instance, the Portuguese government, in January this year, enacted an ordinance to prohibit movements of long vehicles from circulating on single lane roads.

Drivers caught violating this law during specified days termed as ‘optional holidays are made to pay fines. Nigeria should copy from this good example. Desperate situations usually need to be tackled with solutions sometimes perceived as sacrificial. Hence, the subject matter in this discuss requires a dawn to dusk ban on heavy-duty trucks. This would not only reduce the rate of accidents on our roads, but provide great relief from the unpleasant traffic jams they aid to build. When this category of long vehicles is allowed only to drive on our highways, for instance from 12am till 5am, it would save every one of us the trouble and nightmare associated with the surge in road accidents in the country.

The aforementioned WHO report says deaths by road traffic accident will raise by 65 percent by 2015 and 2020; surpassing deaths caused by terminal ailments like tuberculosis and malaria. The time to act is now. Our government should start by repairing bad roads; putting them in good condition and restricting the movements of heavy-duty vehicles during day time.