By MONSURU OLOWOOPEJO

PIQUED by the spate of road accidents caused by excessive smoke emitting vehicles and their damaging effect on the environment, Lagos State Government has concluded plans to commence emission tests for vehicles plying the metropolis, next year.

Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, who disclosed this at the weekend at a stakeholder’s meeting with truck/articulated vehicles owners held at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, Alausa, Lagos, said the emission test will be part of the road worthiness test to be carried out on vehicles.

He said the state government had engaged the services of experts who will conduct the test on vehicles in the state.

The commissioner stated that the experts will come with their equipment to Lagos very soon as government was ready to ensure that vehicles that were not road worthy were kept out of the roads.

According to him, the government ought to have got the database of all commercial vehicles operating in the state by September, 2014, saying that the need to begin emission tests on vehicles was arrived at during the last National Council on Transportation meeting in Lagos.

The commissioner decried the rate at which articulated vehicles were getting involved in accidents, as government was putting machineries in motion to checkmate this unpalatable situation, adding that this was what informed the stakeholders’ meeting.

He said: “We have noticed some new spate of accidents involving articulated vehicles in the state and we felt that we need to speak with the regulator, owners and operators of those vehicles. And that is why we have brought all the stakeholders in the transport sector.

“This is the second meeting in the last three months. And it is meant to discuss how we can reduce the number of accidents caused by articulated vehicles. I was in Abuja this week to attend the Petroleum Tanker Drivers, PTD National conference, to address them. This is because larger percent of these vehicles come to Lagos state to load Petroluem Motor Spirit, PMS and other petroleum products, and we need to explain the importance of safe