Barely twenty-four hour after announcing total ban on night journey by petroleum tanker drivers, Federal Road Safety Commission,FRSC, says plans are underway to organise two month-training for articulated vehicles’ drivers in the country to check tanker and truck accidents on the highways.

Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, said while answering questions from newsmen in Abuja that government was worried about recent crashes involving tankers.

Oyeyemi said from January to date, two hundred and eighty-three crashes involving tankers alone were recorded that destroyed lives and property and degraded the environment.

He said this prompted the FRSC to plan to train articulated vehicles drivers in January in twelve locations nationwide so as to educate them on safety measures and compliance with the minimum safety standards.

Oyeyemi said the reason for the crashes most of the time was the old nature of the vehicles, saying some of them were over thirty years and they were supposed to be off the road.

According to him, eighty per cent of the tanker accidents was also due to brake failure and because the drivers allowed their boys to drive, saying the order restricting tankers from night driving would be stepped down this season to allow for free movement of products to avoid shortage.

He also said there would be checks for drivers to ensure that they were free from the influence of drugs and alcohol and ensure the tyres and head lamps were good.

Oyeyemi then called for the establishment of articulated driving schools as there were limited schools to train such drivers.

The Corps Marshal said out of the one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight driving schools in the country, only one was training articulated drivers and encouraged retired engineers and Vehicle Inspection Officers to set up more driving schools.