FRSC to send 40 officers to France for training – Chidoka

The FRSC boss pledged to take action on petroleum tanker accidents.

The Federal Road Safety Commission is to send 40 officers to France, to undergo training in road traffic safety management at the Total Oil Plc facility.

Osita Chidoka, the Corps Marshal of the FRSC, announced this when Jonathan Molapo, the Total Executive Vice President in charge of Central and North East Africa, paid him a courtesy call.

“I am very proud of the proactive engagement strategy of Total in constantly engaging the FRSC in dealing with the issue of road safety,’’ he said.

Mr. Chidoka said safety was a major issue and risk factor in the business of moving petroleum products across the nation by oil companies.

To minimise the risk, he said the commission would soon come up with a “safe to load’’ programme intended to regulate activities of tanker drivers.

According to Mr. Chidoka, the programme will be designed in line with the Road Transport Safety Standard Scheme (RTSS).

He stressed the need for oil companies to work together with the commission to reduce accidents and deaths involving their vehicles.

“Specifically in the oil industry and especially the downstream sector, we have done series of engagement with major oil players such as Total, Oando and Mobil; we are expanding that engagement.

” We are not saying that we cannot have crashes involving tankers but we need to take proactive steps in ensuring that minimum safety standard are met and sustained by those in the industry.

“30 per cent of crashes in the last two years on our roads involved trucks and tankers and almost about 40 per cent of deaths were recorded from such crashes.

“So, it is imperative on us to come together and work towards eliminating this ugly trend,’’ Chidoka said.

Earlier, Mr. Molapo said Total would continue to partner with the FRSC on safety, especially in the training and monitoring of tanker drivers, with a view to sanctioning those who violate safety standards.

“Road safety is the biggest risk we have because we transport goods that are very dangerous and we travel long distances always,” he said.

“We cannot do everything by ourselves. At Total, we have our own programmes in place but it is also important to work with the FRSC in terms of improving safety standards.

“We are looking at the aspect of standardisation of certain aspects of what we do in terms of delivery; we are looking at safe loading process,’’ he said.

(NAN)