Three people have died and three others sustained injuries after a crane travelling against traffic collided head-on with a truck along the Sagamu-Benin Expressway in Ogun State early Wednesday.
The Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) blamed the fatal crash on route violation and excessive speed, saying the incident occurred around 5:00 a.m. near Babcock Junction in Ikenne Local Government Area.
TRACE spokesperson, Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, said preliminary findings showed that the yellow crane, which had no registration number, was moving against the flow of traffic when it rammed into an oncoming white Mercedes-Benz truck with registration number LG 59 BLF.
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He explained that six people, comprising three men and three women, were involved in the crash.
Akinbiyi said two male occupants and one female occupant died at the scene, while the remaining three victims, all male, suffered varying degrees of injuries.
He said emergency responders from TRACE, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the Nigeria Police Force and a volunteer rescue team known as “Papa Oscar” arrived promptly to rescue survivors and clear the scene.
According to him, the injured victims were taken to the Babcock University Teaching Hospital (BUTH) for medical treatment, while the bodies of the deceased were deposited at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) morgue in Sagamu.
To minimise disruption to motorists, traffic was diverted from Delabo Junction to the second carriageway while recovery teams worked to remove the damaged vehicles from the highway.
Akinbiyi sympathised with the families of those who lost their lives and renewed the agency’s warning against driving against traffic which, he said, is one of the leading causes of avoidable road crashes.
He urged motorists to obey traffic regulations at all times and avoid route violations. He stressed that attempting to shorten travel time by driving against traffic often results in fatal consequences for both offenders and innocent road users.
The accident adds to the growing number of fatal crashes recorded on the Sagamu-Benin Expressway, one of Nigeria’s busiest highways linking the South-West with the South-South and South-East. Road safety authorities have, most times, identified speeding, dangerous overtaking, and driving against traffic as major contributors to crashes on the corridor.
Safety agencies have continued to appeal to motorists, particularly drivers of heavy-duty vehicles and construction equipment, to comply strictly with traffic rules as part of efforts to reduce deaths and injuries on the nation’s highways.
