In July 2018, Vanguard’s on-the-spot counting of illegally-parked trucks and tankers on roads and bridges within Apapa and environs, including far-flung places in Lagos showed that no fewer than 12,337 of them are scattered in different locations in the areas visited. A breakdown of this showed that from Iyana-Isolo to Tin Can, there were 3,200 trucks parked on the road; Ijora to Palmgrove 3,485; from Marine Bridge to Ijora, 1,850 and down the bridge, 1,050; from Stadium to Eko Bridge 874; from Costain-Stadium-Alaka-Fadeyi 865; from Berger Suya to Kirikiri Road (New Road Bus stop 678; from Wilmer Bridge to Awodiora (Ajegunle) 187; from Coker to Costain Bridge 63. The entire Berger area has 671 of these articulated vehicles of which 210 are parked on the bridge.
These trucks besides the traffic nightmares they cause have also caused crashes especially at night and this is because a good number of them have no reflective tapes behind and around them.
As an NGO, we decided to do something about it. We decided to do a campaign and pasted reflective tapes on trucks without reflective tapes. We have already completed the pilot phase of this project, with support from the Federal Road Safety Corps, RaveTV and iBeautyTV. We successfully pasted reflective tapes on over 200 articulated vehicles along the Ikorodu road corridor (Onipanu to Alaka, to be precise) to increase visibility for other road users especially at night.
We intend to do more of this quarterly and it’s solely funded by donations from individuals and volunteers alike.
