Lagos Truck Accident: Tricyclist Crushed Instantly, Two Drivers Severely Injured
By: Abudu Olalekan
The morning commute? Ended fast. Wednesday started with blood on the asphalt at Ekoro Junction, right along the busy Abule-Egba/Command Road in Lagos. It was maybe the early hours, still the rush. Then the noise came. Not just traffic noise. A deep, grinding crunch, followed by the sickening sounds of metal giving way. A massive truck, a trailer really, lost control and slammed into three vehicles. One man, a tricyclist, vanished under the weight.
Abiodun, he was there. Just a bystander, now an unwilling witness. He gathered himself enough to talk. He says the whole thing was a sudden, violent loss of braking power. The trailer, heavy with whatever cargo it carried, just kept moving. It had no brakes. No control. Bam. Total chaos. It rammed into the tricycle first, then two other private vehicles.
It was a terrible sight. Honestly, you didn’t want to look. That trailer, it crushed the tricyclist’s head. Instant death, they said. Zero chance. The impact was that severe. The other drivers, the two poor souls in the car and the SUV, they were severely injured. Trapped in the mangled metal until the emergency crews arrived. It was the police and those guys from LASTMA who had to deal with the immediate aftermath. They had to evacuate the body. They had to rescue the injured. A whole life, gone in a split second of mechanical failure.
We managed to speak to a police officer, one who was close to the scene. He confirmed the driver of the tricycle died immediately. He stressed the instantaneous nature of the death. The focus shifted quickly to the condition of the two other drivers. They were hurt bad. The official report later confirmed this grim assessment.
Mr. Adebayo Taofiq, that man from the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), he say the whole thing was down to catastrophic brake failure. This wasn’t minor carelessness. This was mechanical negligence, maybe. He listed the victims of the vehicular tragedy: a six-tyre trailer, registration number AGL 514 XD; a Honda Pilot (FST 992 DV); a Toyota Camry (EKY 753 JA); and, chillingly, an “unregistered tricycle.”
The preliminary investigations, Taofiq explained, revealed the obvious truth. It was a mechanical brake failure in the fully loaded trailer. The driver, he consequently lost control. The heavy trailer, now a completely uncontrollable weapon, crushed the tricycle beyond recognition. Beyond recognition! Then it smashed into the Honda Pilot, jumped the median barrier, and finally slammed into the Toyota Camry and some nearby property on the opposite lane.
LASTMA operatives, they arrived promptly, they do their best. They managed to rescue those two severely trapped victims. They had to confirm the tricycle operator’s instantaneous death first. They sealed off the scene quickly. Had to prevent a secondary accident, you see. The crash caused terrible gridlock. It took hours for the LASTMA officers to ease the traffic using diversions.
The General Manager of LASTMA, Mr. Olalekan Bakare-Oki, he expressed grief. He calls the crash tragic. Preventable. Always preventable, these things. Mr. Bakare-Oki, he believes this could have been completely avoided if drivers, especially the heavy articulated vehicle operators, had followed the speed limits. And if they maintained their vehicles properly.
He extends his heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased. He prays for the recovery of the injured. This is what they say every time. But the message must be hammered home: motorists, especially those operating these huge, heavy-duty vehicles, need to exercise the utmost caution. They need frequent mechanical inspections. Reckless driving, mechanical negligence—these are the leading causes of road tragedies here in Lagos State. It is simply unacceptable, honestly.
The Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, provided further context. The truck, a Volkswagen with that same AGL 514 XD number, was laden with beverages and bottled water when it fell. It fell right onto the Keke NAPEP parked by the roadside.
Oke-Osanyintolu corroborated the brake failure narrative. “All efforts by the driver to stop the truck proved abortive,” he said. The result: one adult male, the tricycle driver, lost his life when the truck slammed into him and two other cars.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Reportersroom has been tracking these senseless, fatal truck accidents across Lagos and neighboring Ogun State. It’s becoming a pattern, honestly. Just last Monday, they reported on a cement truck that crushed a minor to death near Ilaro. Back in October, five people lost their lives when another truck crushed a tricycle near Papalanto. When will the madness stop? When will these heavy vehicle drivers take responsibility for the machines they control? Somebody needs to do something. Soon.
