The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) said Friday that it would thenceforth not accept the use container trucks by construction giant, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc in transporting its staff to their respective construction sites.
The FRSC Corp Marshal, Osita Chidoka told the Julius Berger Managing Director, Wolfgang Goetsch in Abuja that the container trucks were frequently involved in fatal road accidents.
He said, �Last week, [penultimate week] one truck collided with a commuter bus along the road to Kubwa leading to the death of 16 persons including women and children while another accident involving same kind of container truck and a car in Abaji claimed three lives just after three days of the previous one.
�Again two days ago, another accident caused by one of the Berger trucks claimed the lifted a woman with two children. The accidents were largely as a result of poor coordination of Berger drivers.�
The Corps Marshal said the commission presently had eight vehicles belonging to the company arrested for various offences and would soon be prosecuted. He said the company must furnish the commission with its safety policies including the number of safety managers it had. He also asked the company to give to the commission details of its drivers including their mental assessment procedures and how often they attended training and re-training programmes.
The FRSC said it would apply same regulations on other companies and that failure to abide by them might attract punishment.
In his comment, the MD of Julius Berger Plc said the company regretted the accidents involving their vehicles and that they were ready to abide by the FRSC regulations. He said the company apart from testing the health condition of its drivers before being employed, also engaged them in-house trainings.
He however said it was not all accidents involving Julius Berger vehicles that were caused by its drivers.
The company was summoned by the commission after the Kubwa road accident which claimed 16 lives and in which the Berger truck was burnt buy angry youths.