Driver of late Minister of State for Labour, James Ocholi, Taiwo James Elegbede, will be taken to court on allegation of overspeeding and driving without a license, the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, has hinted.
Presenting the accident’s Road Traffic Crash Investigation Interim Report to the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday, Corps Marshal of FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, alleged that the driver of the late Minister was on high speed when the vehicle the deceased was travelling with had an accident.
The auto crash, which occurred last Sunday, claimed the lives of the Minister, his wife and son.
Oyeyemi further said the driver had no valid driver’s licence as his name was not found on the data base of FRSC.
“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 severely 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 in 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 indicates 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 belts.”
The FRSC recommended, among other things, for “the certification and re-certification of convoy drivers at intervals of two years of issuance of convoy driver’s licence.
“President Buhari should lead the campaign on compliance with speed limits, starting with installation of speed limiting devises in commercial vehicles.
“There was no record on the driver’s licence national data base of the driver of the 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 belt were not in use and on the contrary, the driver and the orderly survived because the front seats belt were in use,” the FRSC boss said.
