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In what seems to be an effective strategy in the fight against trailer crashes and conveyance of human beings by the same category of vehicles, the Inter-agency Joint Task Force recently constituted by the Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps, Dauda Ali Biu, to operate along critical corridors have apprehended 35 trailers carrying 982 passengers.
Reports of the special intervention patrol operations forwarded to the National Headquarters revealed a total of 19 trailers carrying 810 people were apprehended on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway. While the JTF team covering the Bauchi-Maiduguri general operation area of the corps also arrested 16 trailers conveying 172 passengers on that route.
The arrests were perfected within the first one week beginning from March 23 to 30, 2024 of its operations on the identified routes.
At the points of arrests, the inter-agency joint task force ensured that all passengers onboard the trailers were dropped, cautioned against the deadly act and asked to join passenger vehicles designed for conveying people.
The corps marshal also directed sector commanders of the states where the act is more prominent to sustain ongoing engagement with the leadership of road transport unions as well as owners of articulated vehicles.
This is to ensure that drivers who engage in such traffic violations are cautioned.
The corps marshal had earlier flagged off the inter-agency joint task force on March 23, 2024, in Kaduna State, comprising the Nigerian Police Force, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, State Traffic Management Agencies and Transport Unions.
The mandate of the JTF is to mitigate trailer related crashes and fatalities as well as stop the use of trailers to convey passengers following the spate of a number of avoidable crashes that involved trailers loaded with goods, animals and passengers that led to deaths and injuries.
Amongst the crashes were those of March 4, 2024, in Tashan Yari, where a trailer loaded with grains and passengers crashed and killed 12 people.
Others were those of March 18, 2024, where a trailer loaded with goods and 172 passengers crashed on the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway, killing 10 people; as well as that of Sunday, March 31, 2024, in Obajana, which led to the death of 13 people.
