Taming articulated vehicle drivers

The summit’s objectives were as follows; to ensure sustained safe mode of petroleum products haulage, to establish the best way to check and enforce the minimum standards in tankers and trailers’ operation, to work with the Department of Petroleum Recourses (DPR), Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), cement and flour mill companies and other major fleet operators as well as tank farms to ensure insistence on tankers and trailers meeting minimum safety standards and sanctions for default.
Others included ensuring compliance with permissible axle load by stakeholders, implementation of safe to load initiative (a standard to be agreed on and enforced), implementation of fixing of the retro-reflective tapes on trucks to enhance visibility, possibility of renewal of petroleum tankers, through fleet acquisition renewal scheme with collaboration with financial institutions i.e. Bank of Industry, and infrastructure bank.
The convener of the summit tagged ‘Haulage Operations for National Development,’ the Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Boboye Oyeyemi, set the tone  when he reeled out data on crashes highlighting those involving articulated vehicles. He took his audience down memory lane, informing them that in 2013 a total of 21,199 vehicles were involved in crashes, in which 1495 were tanker/trailer related, representing 7.05 percent. The following year a total of 16,779 vehicles were involved in road traffic crashes out of which 998 were tanker/trailer related, representing 5.94 percent.
He informed them that from the beginning of this year to date, a total of 1193 vehicles caused crashes in which 49 were tanker/trailer related, representing 4.11 percent. Although 49 tankers were responsible for the 1193 vehicles that caused crashes between January and June 2015, it is worrisome that 16 of the incidents occurred in the first week of June. From preliminary investigations these crashes were caused by brake failure. The effects of these are measured in the loss of lives, property, damage to vehicle, infrastructure, oil spillage, and economic loss.
Oyeyemi crystallballed into the future on what the trend might look like if nothing concrete is done to checkmate the madness caused by these operators. “Given the first week of June crashes of 16 involving tanker/trailers and 46 deaths from Onitsha crash alone, trailers and tankers may cause about 384 crashes before the end of 2015. This may translate to about 17,664 deaths this year. If this trend is not checked, fatality from articulated vehicle crashes would be directly accountable for over 47 percent of the projected road traffic crashes for 2015,” he said.
What then is responsible for these crashes? I will still rely on the submission of the Corps Marshal, who posited the following as the causes of these crashes, especially the recent one; the suspension of the strike by the petroleum union led to increased demand for vehicles to transport fuel across the country. This increased demand for vehicles led to the use of non-road worthy vehicles which would normally have been put off the road. The second is the unsafe loading/off-loading – he noted that there is also the unsafe method of loading and discharging of petroleum products by some transporters, especially with poorly constructed tankers. This leads to the spillage of their contents at the slightest incident in addition to the challenge of poor vehicle maintenance. He also fingered the high cost of acquired new vehicles (a new tanker costs about N21 million for the head only and N28 million for the head and trailer while fairly used is about N10-N11 million for only the head). He noted that the prohibitive cost of articulated vehicles forced fleet operators to fairly used trailers and tankers which are prone to incessant breakdowns and road traffic crashes.
Another factor is the use of under-aged and poorly trained drivers who sometimes due to youthful exuberance, indulge in use of drugs and excessive speeding. Most of these drivers are fatigued, depressed and unkempt, hungry and exhausted due to long stay in the queue to load, driving under poor weather conditions and inappropriate vehicle registration which makes strict enforcement and tracking difficult.
In the course of the summit, stakeholders observed and attempted to find answers to the following issues raised: high rate of tankers and trailers’ crashes in the nation is worrisome and should be checked, more attention is required to be focused on vehicles technical wellness/characteristics by fleet operators, loading authorisation and permit – safe-to load policy adherence is required to be implemented, training/retraining of tankers and trailer drivers need to be intensified and sustained, appropriate licensing of drivers and medical fitness.
In addition it observed that the best time for tankers and trailers’ movement has become a necessity given the high density of vehicles on Nigerian roads, road network density and length vis-a-vis: fatigue and rest periods/place. There is need to decentralise the concentration of tank farms within the same location and accessibility as well as close down the illegal ones, indiscriminate parking of vehicles along the highways (road shoulders) needs to be checked, all deviants drivers should face the wrath of the law when apprehended, There is need to tighten access to professional haulage road drivers’ license. There is the urgent need for renewal of petroleum tankers, through fleet acquisition renewal scheme with collaboration with financial institutions i.e. bank of industry.
There is urgent need for life insurance for all Nigerians for ease of compensation in case of loss of lives; need for comprehensive welfare package for haulage drivers by their employers in other to motivate them; modernisation of law enforcement (personnel and equipment) – training and re-training; need for modern vehicle testing to be introduced in all states of the federation; conflicts between law enforcement agents and drivers; en-route issues such as bad roads, illegal location of markets and other road encroachments; need to repair broken down petroleum pipelines to ensure decentralisation of supplies, need for  life insurance for all Nigerians to ease payment of compensation to all victims of mishaps, need to establish age limit for trucks to be used for haulage purposes; none available of specialised driving schools for truck drivers.