🔴 Call to action for road safety: Message to oil company decision-makers and their transporters. 🔴
Time to face a brutal reality: accidents involving trucks transporting hazardous goods occur far too often, leaving behind a heavy toll of lost lives and collateral victims. These human tragedies, avoidable in many cases, demand our attention and require each of us to take responsibility.
The facts we share in the press review at the end of this article are not just accounts of distant tragedies. They reflect the harsh reality that we can no longer ignore. While not all accidents can be avoided, their consequences and collateral damage are silent accusations against those who could have made a difference. It is striking to note that sometimes, ordering parties prefer to impose costly tracking and behavioral control measures, essentially focused on protecting equipment, rather than investing in accident prevention technologies for populations aimed at saving lives.
Our rollover detection and alert system to surrounding populations, GC-Rollover, has been in existence for several years. It has been tested, proven, and successfully installed by some of you. Yet, too many oil companies and their ordering parties still seem unaware of the existence of this technology, or worse, neglect to adopt it. While some are aware of the system, it is perplexing to see them neglecting its use. Indeed, it is imperative to recognize that the safety of human lives should never be compromised for the sake of short-term economic gains. The savings made by avoiding a crucial investment in safety must be carefully weighed against the immediate and long-term costs resulting from such negligence. When the safety of individuals is sidelined, companies not only risk substantial financial losses due to litigation, fines, and compensation but also face a deterioration of their reputation, even as their popularity is already low, and populations regularly express their rejection.
The need to spend considerable sums on advertising to try to restore an image tarnished by a lack of safety responsibility should alert decision-makers. Public and stakeholder trust can be difficult to regain once lost. Thus, investing in safety not only saves lives but also protects the reputation and long-term economic viability of any responsible organization.
Responsibility is not an option; it is a collective duty. Every truck on the roads carries with it a much greater burden than that of its goods. It carries the responsibility to protect human lives and prevent avoidable tragedies.
The finding is overwhelming, and it is time for the gravity of the situation to be fully felt. We have the means to do better, to do more. Each must take responsibility and has a duty to protect human life. While massive communication operations are funded to give a good conscience and to convince of the urgency to save the planet and humanity in the decades to come, why not care about those who can lose their lives today? The public more easily tolerates the inaction of those who do not know the solutions, but much less that of those who chose to keep their eyes closed out of negligence, laziness, or greed. Not knowing is an error, not acting is a fault.
GC-Rollover – PREVENTING TO PROTECT: System presentation
PRESS REVIEW:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/24/eight-dead-after-fuel-truck-explosion-in-southwest-nigeria
At least eight people have been killed after a fuel truck exploded in southwestern Nigeria as residents were trying to siphon petrol out of it, police said.
The truck was involved in an accident on Sunday night in a neighbourhood of Ondo state which caused it to veer off the road and topple on its side, the police said on Monday.
(…) Fuel truck accidents are common in Nigeria where petroleum products are often carried across the country by road as rail infrastructure is mostly outdated or inadequate.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-tanker-explosion-death-toll-jumps-27-2022-12-29/
The death toll from a gas tanker blast in Johannesburg on Christmas Eve has climbed to 27, the provincial health department said on Thursday.
At least five people were killed and 50 injured late on Sunday when a fire broke out in a truck transporting diesel fuel (…).
The source said that after the truck overturned but before it set on fire some people from other cars had approached it to try and take fuel from the truck’s tank. “(Those) citizens approached it to refuel without realizing the magnitude of the danger.
The death toll from a fuel truck explosion in Haiti rose to 75 on Wednesday as doctors scrambled to treat the wounded from an incident that officials say was made more deadly by residents approaching the vehicle in a desperate search for fuel.
https://www.trtafrika.com/africa/fuel-truck-blast-kills-six-in-niger-15518565
The Zinder-Infos website said two trucks collided and rolled over on Sunday evening at Tirmini, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the town of Zinder. Local residents then came running to siphon off fuel from the trucks when one of the vehicles caught fire, Tirmini’s mayor told Zinder-Infos.
(…) In May 2019, a total of 76 people died and 40 were seriously burned when a truck transporting 50,000 litres (13,200 gallons) of petrol to neighbouring Burkina Faso exploded.
https://punchng.com/five-die-in-sapele-benin-road-tanker-explosion/
The fire claimed the lives of five persons amongst the youths who had come to scoop the spilled fuel and also combusted several properties which include the following: the fallen tanker, eight buses of different makes, two Tankers, five Trailers, two Motorcycles, one Siena Space bus and one ‘C’ Class Mercedes Benz car.
https://www.africanews.com/2022/08/01/at-least-six-killed-in-libya-fuel-tanker-explosion/
Seven people were killed when a fuel tanker truck caught fire and exploded in southern Libya on Monday, according to a local source.
More than 40 people were also injured in the incident which took place in the town of Bent Bayya, the source told Anadolu Agency.
The source said the truck caught fire as local residents were attempting to take leaked fuel after it broke down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/africa/liberia-gas-tanker-explosion.html
Dozens of people were killed on a roadside in Liberia after they rushed to scoop up fuel from an overturned tanker before it exploded, officials said.
Officials have said more than 40 people died in the blast on Tuesday, but the country’s health minister, Wilhelmina Jallah, said in a telephone interview that the number of fatalities could rise because an additional 83 people were injured.