BY AYO ESAN
IN a sustained efforts towards making the highways safer and eradicating all incidences of road traffic crashes and its attendant fatalities, Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps, Boboye Oyeyemi, has urged Administrators of Local Governments in the country to relocate markets from the highways.
Oyeyemi said this would help the existing operational efforts of the FRSC towards enhancing the safety of the entire motoring population.
According to a statement signed by the Corps Public Education Officer, Bisi Kazeem, the Corps Marshal made this call while decrying the recent road traffic crash caused by brake failure and loss of control that claimed multiple lives at the Ibaka area of Akungba Akoko, Akoko South-West Local Government Area of Ondo State on Saturday evening.
Lamenting the huge loss of lives and damage to properties occasioned by the unfortunate but avoidable occurrence, Oyeyemi explained that the crash occurred at about 6.30 pm on Saturday, October 31, 2020, when a DAF Truck loaded with bags of rice rammed into the stalls in the market and crashed into a Toyota Camry saloon car, Toyota corolla and three other motorcycles.
The fatal crash involved a total of 23 people, comprising 11 male adults, three male children, seven female adults and two female children.
Out of the 23 people involved, a total of seven people, comprising three male adults, three female adults and one male child, were rescued with different degrees of injuries and taken to the hospital.
Sixteen people were killed, comprising eight male adults, two male children, four female adults and two female children. The dead bodies have been deposited at Specialist Hospital, Ikare; and General Hospital, Iwaro Oka mortuaries, respectively, by FRSC emergency rescue teams.
The Corps Marshal, who spoke extensively on the urgency of such relocation, also revealed that the Corps was concerned about the rising statistics of innocent citizens who had lost their lives as a result of building markets close to the highways and had since initiated impact oriented operational strategies to curb the menace.
He however lamented that the strategies, no matter how good, would not yield the desired results if the government at the grassroots did not rise to the responsibility of relocating those markets.
Commiserating with the families of the victims, the Corps Marshal advised road users to be more disciplined, maintain their vehicles regularly and maintain prescribed speed limits at all times, especially in crowded places like markets.
