Daily Independent (Lagos)
27 October 2008
editorial
The recent crackdown by the Lagos State Government on articulated trucks with unlatched containers is a step in the right direction. The populace deserve to be protected from the nightmares and deaths arising from the recklessness of such transporters.
Up till now, it is not unusual to see trucks and articulated trailers bearing unlatched containers in their trail. Such containers are placed on flatbeds that have no fittings to prevent them from sliding off. They sit on such surface precariously perpendicular. No one needs elementary knowledge of physics to know that the unlatched containers would require no external force before they would slide, especially when the truck is climbing a sloping surface or when it drives through the potholed highways. And when they slide, they fall on cars around them, crushing their passengers and bringing sorrow, tears and blood in their trail.
In one most recent instance, an unlatched container fell off a rickety truck in the Ogudu area of Lagos, crushing a pregnant woman, her child and a commercial motor-cycle rider. Two weeks before, some few metres from Anthony Bus Stop, along Gbagada Expressway, seven people were killed, while eight vehicles loaded with goods estimated at several millions of naira were destroyed in a multiple accident caused by a container that fell from a trailer. The husband of one of the female victims of the accident was one John Nwogu. He had watched the mangled body of his wife evacuated.
That same week at Ogba, a driver of a Toyota saloon car and the assistant driver of an articulated vehicle were crushed to death when the fully-loaded container fell off from the trailer bed owing to improper latching.
Both John Nwogu and one Taiwo Ogunlobiyi, who claimed that his relation was crushed to death by a container that was not properly latched at Cele Bus Stop along Apapa- Oshodi Expressway a few years ago, had wondered why most of the old trucks and articulated vehicles that are supposed to be off the roads are still allowed to operate. Nwogu had specifically called on government to take drastic action against drivers of container-carrying trucks.
Notwithstanding the mass shrill for help the menace is still unabated. Only few days ago, there had been a prolonged traffic hold-up occasioned by another case of unlatched trailer wedging a Toyota Camry car as they both attempted to make a detour somewhere in Amuwo Odofin Estate.
The decision of Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) to take decisive action against these derelict trailer operators should have been taken by the Federal Government through its agencies like the Federal Road Safety
Commission, (FRSC), as a much needed crusade to rid our roads of avoidable carnage.
Spurred by his legal professional understanding of the rule in Ryland versus Fletcher in the Tort of Negligence that anyone who collects and keeps anything capable of causing damage upon its escape does so at his own risk, and if not so, is prima facie liable for the damage occasioned by such escape, Governor Babatunde Fashola has instituted a task force that charges a fine of N50, 000.00 for vehicles so impounded upon the breach of his edict. This is just not enough way of deterring these obstinate law-breakers in our midst. The National Assembly should back state edicts with legislations such as would criminalise offences like these, seeing they impugn on people's lives, limbs and property.
Other than the dangers that are immanent in articulated trailers carrying unlatched containers, the government must see the deadly menace of the obnoxious effusions being released into the atmosphere from the exhaust pipes of these old, rickety and dilapidated automobiles. They pollute the air recklessly and cause untold damage to lungs and skins, initiating cancerous diseases whose symptoms may not be diagnosable in the short run. These are some of the reasons the life-span of the average citizen is short. They are as inimical to human well-being as the unbridled exposure of human skin to ultra-violet rays as occasioned by the depletion of the ozone layer. Planting trees and engaging in aesthetic landscaping is pleasant to sight and emotions.
Aside from the menace of containers, bio-chemical effusions, as emitted by the rickety trucks, also deserve official action, as they are capable of corroding our bio-sphere. In this 21st-Century that has environmental care as cardinal in the index of social development we cannot continue to pay lip-service to issues that need our fundamental and drastic attention.
The idea of having trailers off the road in the day and having them ply the roads in the night when roads are less busy is a good thing to consider. However, given the state of our roads one may find it difficult to buy into the idea. Most of the roads within and outside municipalities are so cratered they make the society look like it has just witnessed Armageddon. The consequence is that even when articulated trailers and their loads are properly latched, the potholes that have since metamorphosed into gullies are so deep that no amount of mechanical accuracy would prevent an automobile from overturning.
A good law cannot stand on one leg. It must be balanced. Where government is quick at apprehending and punishing derelict transporters, it must not fail to put the carriageways in motorable condition. Potholes are responsible for most of the accidents and deaths recorded daily on the streets of Lagos.
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