The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Dauda Biu, has disclosed that the Joint Tax Force (JTF) recently constituted by the corps has been mandated to mitigate trailer-related crashes and fatalities, as well as stop the use of trailer to convey passengers.
Speaking yesterday in Zuba, Abuja, at the official flag off of the 2024 Sallah motor park mega rally, he noted that prior to the inauguration of the Force, the corps had recorded a number of avoidable crashes that involved trailers loaded with goods, animals and passengers, leading to deaths and injuries.
Represented by the Deputy Corps Marshal Operations, Mr Alkali Zaki, he said it was time Nigerians knew that frequent cases of road crashes on the roads was not linked to any spirit killing people, rather an increase in human and vehicular movement, bad driving behaviour, and impatience.
He said several investigations carried out on some accidents revealed that immediate causes of crashes were due to drinking and driving, overloading of vehicles, use of worn-out tyres, overloading, lane indiscipline, excessive speed and wrongful overtaking, among others.
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“As part of efforts to deal with these challenges, the Corps came up with the idea of taking the message of safety down to all of us at the motor parks quite early due to the critical role the union officials play on the road.
“The Corps has also put in place, key strategic measures to combat crashes on the road. These initiatives include the flag-off of Joint Task Force against use of trailers to convey human beings which contradicts the original design of the vehicle. We have also ensured the commencement of enforcement on overloading of vehicles and the intensification of Mobile Court operations nationwide,” he said.
On his part, representative of the Nigerian Police Force, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) from Zuba division, David Passa, advised the corps to extend its operations to the night.
He said whenever the police stop truck or trailers drivers who were driving overloaded vehicles, they would accuse them of not having the mandate to stop them.
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