Month: March 2019
It appears that car tyre safety has been overlooked or taken for granted by many motorists who do not care to know much about the tyres on their vehicle.Most motorists lack adequate tyre safety information or tips that can prevent severe accidents. Many drivers, mostly ladies, leave their tyre safety in the hands of roadside vulcanizers who may also be clueless. This may create more chances of severe injury or loss of life for the road users.
It is important that your car tyres can save you from untimely death or unwanted injuries,if properly managed with safety. On the other hand, your car tyres can also cause untimely death or unwanted damage if poorly managed and this is the reason why tyre safety is very important, mostly to prevent untimely death and injury.
Many road users have undoubtedly lost their precious lives on road accidents due to tyre failure. For instance, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reveals that over 400 deaths occurred every year due to tyre failures or blowouts and 78, 000 crashes occurred every year.
The frequency of tyre blowouts is highly worrisome.For instance, tyre blowout statistics also reveals that majority of accidents that occurred from 2005 to 2007, and involving over 2 million vehicles were caused by tyre related issues.
Here are tyre safety tips you must know:
1. Know your tyre pressure: Most times, motorists do not take time to know the proper tyre pressure recommended by the manufacturer of their tyres. They leave this importanttyresafetymeasure into the hands of roadside vulcanizers who may also be clueless about it.Motorists must try to know the pressure of their car tyreincluding the spare tyre every month.
2. You must check your tyre tread: A tread worn-out tyre is dangerous because it creates more chances for the tyre to slip or slid which may lead to unwanted accident.The adhesive friction of a tyre on the road surface onwhich it movesmust not be in doubt. Motorists must ensure to check their tyre tread every month.
3. You must maintain proper wheel alignment between the two tyres: This is essential if you want to enjoy the maximum lifespan of your tyre, and stop your vehicle from changing direction suddenly when driving due to imbalanced alignment. Therefore, every motorist needs to balance their vehicle alignment.
4. Always use the tyre size recommended by your vehicle manufacturer: Every manufacturer of any product has useable information about its products to the consumers or users. Such information or warning must not be taken for granted or ignored if you desire to enjoy the product, most especially when the information has to do with safety.
5. Do not use ageing tyre: Every tyre has an expiry date; you need to replace them when due.Using ageing tyres creates more chances for accidents to occur.
Life is good and your life is precious; the issue of tyre safety must be a major concern for all motorists than any other category of road users.Every road user must not be ignorant of potential safety hazards that may come as a result of poor tyre management. Every road user must rise up to the task to reduce high rate of accident related to tyre failure. It pays to be safety conscious.
Many people of high caliber and prominent men of worthy character in Nigeria have lost their lives or died young in road accidents involving all kind of haulage trucks. In 2015, a haulage truck caring unlatched container fell on a bus in Illishan, killing 11 occupants that were students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, (OOU), Ogun State and the driver of the said bus.
It is also interesting to note that properties worth millions, if not billions, were destroyed in different locations across the country in accidents caused by haulage trucks. For instance, in 2015, not less than 21 vehicles, 44 shops, and 3 houses were thoroughly destroyed by a fire accident caused by a petrol tanker that fell off the bridge in Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos-State.
If one single petrol tanker accident destroyed such amount of properties, you can imagine what 2 or more petrol tanker accidents could do to the society. This may probably explain to you why sharing the road with articulated vehicles or petrol tankers still remain worrisome in the heart of many people.
According to former Corps Marshall of Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) Mr. Osita Chidoka, road accident involving tanker drivers and road haulage trucks between January and March 2009 were 2,119 accidents and 301 deaths. The fact that this happened in 3 months is shocking.
With this report, it means on the average there were 23 accidents every day and not less than 3 lives were lost every day.
In addition, in 2015, the Corps Marshall of FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, at a stakeholder’s summit noted that in 2013, a total of 21,199 vehicles were involved in crashes in which 1, 495 were tankers or trailer related.
However, from the above given statistics by Corps Marshalls, it is clearly noticeable that the rising road accidents involving tanker drivers and haulage trucks and the recorded deaths from these accidents are increasingly worrisome.
Nevertheless, there are 3 reasons why high rate of accident involving petrol tankers and haulage trucks couple with high rate of deaths from these avoidable accidents remain worrisome to road users, however, here are the reasons:
- Near-absence of both commercial and government driving school for articulated vehicles and tanker drivers.
- An unusual life-style of some truck drivers.
- Poor safety consciousness on the part of truck owners and truck drivers.