Minister of State for Labour and Employment James Ocholi
The Federal Road Safety Commission has submitted a comprehensive report on how the Minister of State for Labour and Employment James Ocholi and family died.
The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) said yesterday that Minister of State for Labour and Employment James Ocholi died due to over-speeding which resulted in the fatal accident. Ocholi, his wife and son died in the fatal accident on Sunday along Kaduna-Abuja road.
Throwing more light on how the ugly incident happened, FRSC Corps Marshal Boboye Oyeyemi presented the accident’s Road Traffic Crash Investigation Interim Report to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to Oyeyemi the impact of the accident was more on Ocholi and his family members who were seated at the rear seats because they were not using seat belts.
He said: “Information gathered revealed that the driver of the crashed vehicle was actually moving at excess of the stipulated speed when he had a tyre burst.
“The crashed vehicle driver was driving too fast and he slammed on his brake so hard. These two factors materially contributed to the inability of the driver to maintain control when the left rear tyre burst.
“Skid marks and grooves found on the westbound shoulder made by the Lexus LX570 for about 15m and 9.3m respectively before it began somersaulting several times and the ejection of the minister and his son, showed clearly that the travelling speed of the Lexus LX570 presented unsafe consequences in the event of certain road risk that may have occurred.
“The driver must have entered into a panic situation which resulted to his hard application of brakes and subsequent loss of control that took him into the bush path.
“The DOT number of the tyres were inward which cannot easily be read from outside. This indicate that the orientations of the tyres were not properly fixed, which could adversely affect the performance of the tyres.
“The Federal Road Safety Corps Investigation Team (FIT) determines that the probable cause of the March 6, 2016 fatal crash at KM34 Kaduna -Abuja expressway near Rijana village, Kaduna State was the driver’s failure to maintain directional control of his vehicle when the rear left tyre burst occurred.
“Severity of the fatality was increased due to the ejection of the minister and his son as a result of non use of rear seat belt.
“The corps recommended among other things, for “the certification and re-certification of convoy drivers at intervals of two years of issuance of convoy driver’s license.
“There was no record on the driver’s licence national data base of the driver of the Hon. Minister with the name Taiwo James Elegbede.”
“The ejection of the minister and his son who occupied the rear seat confirmed the fact that their rear seat belts were not in use and, on the contrary, the driver and the orderly survived because the front seats belt were in use.
“President Buhari is to lead the campaign on compliance with speed limits, starting with installation of speed limiting devises in commercial vehicles.” he said.
1 comment:
May his soul rest in peace.
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