Expired tyres and the legislative imperative to save lives

Relief may soon come the way of vehicle owners, as the House of Representatives has begun moves that will culminate in the passage of a law which seeks to curtail and if possible, eradicate the havoc being perpetrated by substandard and expired tyres on Nigerian roads. Essentially, the bill to that effect, which scaled second reading on the floor of the chamber, is principally seeking to make it mandatory for the expiry date of tyres to be more explicit rather than the coded way in which it is being shown presently.

The House argued that considering the level of literacy in the country, very few users and purchasers can readily decode and decipher the expiry date of tyres as is presently coded. In March this year, James Ocholi (SAN), a minister of the federal republic, his wife and son died in a fatal auto crash along Abuja-Kaduna highway.

While Ocholi, 55, and his son, Aaron Enojo, 20, died instantly, his wife, Blessing Fatima, a Registrar at Salem University, Sokoto, was said to have died later from injuries sustained in the crash. The late minister and members of his family were said to be travelling in his vehicle when the accident occurred. Explaining how the minister and his family members died 57 kilometers away from Kaduna, Kaduna State Sector Commander of Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Francis Udoma, said the rear tyre of the SUV they were travelling in burst, while the vehicle skidded off the road and somersaulted several times into the bush.

Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in April 2016 confirmed the death of six of its members in a ghastly motor accident along Abuja-Kaduna expressway. A survivor, Dr. Stephen Ayosanmi of EKSUTH, spoke to newsmen on his hospital bed and disclosed that the accident occurred as a result of a burst tyre. The doctors were part of the Ekiti State delegates to the 56th Annual General Conference/Annual Delegates Meeting (AGC/ADM) of NMA which held in Sokoto State. Those who lost their lives in the accident were: Dr Tunde Aladesanmi of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti, FETHI; Dr Ojo Taiwo, Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, EKSUTH; NMA Secretary, Dr Akinyele Alex; Dr J. Ogunseye of the Health Management Board; President, EKSUTH Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Dr Olajide, Dr Adeniyi James of the FETHI and a driver identified as Mr. Ajibola.

Ayosanmi said: “I am one of the delegates for the National NMA Conference taking place in Sokoto. On our way, we decided to follow Kaduna and rest so that we would continue our journey to the conference the following day. We were about 60km to Kaduna when the accident happened. We were in a bus that seats between 15 and 16 persons. We were 13 in the bus, including the driver.

Asides the driver, we were all doctors. This was on Sunday, April 24. As we were approaching Kaduna, suddenly a tire burst. The bus somersaulted. This was around 4:45pm.” Only recently, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) said it would henceforth impound vehicles with expired and substandard tyres in the country. The FRSC Corps Marshal, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, made this known at the Stakeholders’ Forum on Tyres with the theme `‘Promoting Safe Tyre use in Nigeria.” The forum was organized by the FRSC in Abuja.

Oyeyemi said that all the crashes the commission had recorded from February 2016 till date had been tyre-related. He said that this could be attributed to ignorance in the use and management of tyres by most drivers. “We are going to start impounding any vehicle that has expired or substandard tyres and then we will arrange for the continuous journey of the passengers. That’s the new method to preserve lives. The bill therefore specifically seeks to make it mandatory for all tyres manufactured in or imported into Nigeria to bear both manufacturing and expiry dates.

This is even as the chamber last week urged the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) to properly educate Nigerians on the hazards associated with improper handling of tyres and use of food-based sealing pastes on tyres. In a motion it adopted before proceeding on its annual recess, the House lamented the high incidence of tyre related accidents that have resulted in the loss of about 5,000 lives from 2010 to date, with vulcanizers as the main culprit in tyre failures and the consequent fatalities owing to the inappropriate handling of tyres.

The House said the best way to repair tyres is the use of standard rim and tubeless tyre sealing pastes, which are lubricant, water resistant, and oil based. These, according to it, protect the rim from rusting, prevent tyres from drying up, and also makes mounting and removing easier. Sponsor of the motion, Sopuluchukwu Ezeonwuka told the parliament that this improper handling of tyres includes the use of food based sealing pastes like “fufu” and “eba” in the repairs of tyres and this dangerous practice causes rusts and wear on even the newest and strongest rims and tyres.

Hear him, “The practice drastically reduces the lifespan of tyres, even brand new ones, from perhaps six years to two years as the case may be, as tyres repaired in that manner dry up, crack, lose air faster and may burst unexpectedly as evidenced in spare tyres with food based pastes which deflates easily on their own, thus leaving the user wondering what went wrong and the most common consequence of tyre failure on the road is roll-over accidents.”

Meanwhile, the proposed legislation when passed into law will enable a lay user of tyres to instantly note the expiry date at a glance, just like in the case of medicinal drugs, without the need to engage in any exercise or mathematical calculations in order to decode the expiry date code on the tyre.

Sponsor of the bill, Yakub Abiodun Balogun said the use of substandard and expired tyres has caused a lot of accidents which has led to loss of lives and properties in Nigeria and it is within the purview of the lawmakers to employ the legislative instrument to address the problem. Balogun said if passed into law, the piece of legislation will also make an average user of tyres to avoid buying expired products which will in turn lead to reduction in tyre related auto crash.