The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has reported that 411 Nigerians died in 2024 while attempting to scoop fuel from fallen tankers.
The disclosure was made on Tuesday in Makurdi by Benue State Sector Commander, Mr. Steve Ayodele, during a town hall meeting with trailer and tanker drivers focused on crash prevention.
Ayodele noted that the fatalities accounted for 7.6 percent of all road traffic deaths in 2024, emphasizing that the impact extended far beyond the loss of lives.
The meeting, held under the theme “Discourage Fuel Scooping and Other Anti-Road Traffic Attitudes,” aimed to tackle practices that escalate accidents into major disasters.
“Tanker explosions often cause life-threatening burns and destroy shops, vehicles, and infrastructure, while also worsening the economic hardships of victims’ families. Fuel scooping and other anti-traffic behaviors turn avoidable accidents into major tragedies,” Ayodele said.
He added that tanker and trailer crashes frequently leave devastating consequences, which are often exacerbated by unsafe conduct at crash sites. “Fuel scooping, reckless driving, disobedience to traffic rules, and roadside trading near accident-prone areas put lives at risk. Fuel scooping has become one of the deadliest practices on Nigerian roads. Instead of seeing spilt fuel as a hazard, many rush to collect it. We have witnessed tragic incidents where lives were lost due to fires caused by this reckless act,” Ayodele warned.
