Three persons died, yesterday, while five others, among them an eight-year-old girl, were injured, in the Dopemu area of Lagos when a car crushed them at the bus-stop.

The accident occurred around Tower Aluminium village on the Lagos/Abeokuta Expressway, when a red Peugeot 406 car with number-plate BM 214 EKY, veered off its lane and rammed into the commuters, killing three on the spot.
The car eventually plunged into a ditch, according to reports.

Two of the dead victims were identified simply as Kazeem and Tope. They were reportedly coming from a nearby sawmill where they went to buy plywood. Among the injured were two commercial motorcyclists.

A mob, according to eye- witnesses, would have lynched the driver of the car, but for the timely arrival of policemen from Dopemu Division.

When Vanguard arrived the scene, the injured had reportedly been taken to the hospital. One of those found at the scene of the accident, who said he escaped death, said: “ I had gone to get the prices of some materials at the Aluminium village. As I was walking towards the bus-stop, the vehicle just came from nowhere. I really can’t explain how I escaped.

“But I just found myself on the ground. At first, I thought I was dead, but when people gathered and helped me up, I discovered I was still alive. But the story was not the same with the others. Three of them died on the spot because the vehicle ran over them. Another person, an apprentice at the sawmill had his hand broken. The baffling thing was that the vehicle did not stop, it kept clearing people from the road, until it landed inside the gully.

“The driver would have escaped but people around rushed there and apprehended him as he managed to come out of the vehicle. Some of them said he was reeking of alcohol when he was brought out. There was another person with him in the car but nobody could say how the passenger escaped.”

Officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, also arrived the scene to control the resultant hitch in the flow of traffic.