Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on Tuesday gave a startling revelation indicating that the Nigerian roads are congested leading to increased accidents claiming human many lives.

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, made the revelation 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.

According to him, “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, Mr. Soliman Akani Oladiti, who was represented by Mr. Lucky Ossesua (1st vice national deputy chairman), said the training was expedient as a measure to drastically reduce road crashes among tanker drivers in the zone.

Oladiti noted that road accidents involving tanker drivers had reduced significantly in the past two years due to similar lectures organised by leadership of the union for its members

The PTD boss reemphasized that the union frowned at night driving for tanker drivers in line with associated problems, noting that any tanker driver caught driving after 7p.m. across the country would be severely punished by his leadership.

On his part, the Warri Zonal Chairman, who is also the organiser of the programme, Mr. Aneru Bello, disclosed that over 500 tanker drivers in the zone were partaking in the training, charging members to adhere strictly to roads rules to avoid road accidents.

Bello said: “Our branch has chosen to tackle the challenges facing petroleum tankers drivers across the country by way of educating our members through training such as what we are doing now. This training has been on-going in other zones and the result has been quite encouraging.”

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