FRSC worried over high rate of deaths on Nigerian roads

Dr. Kayode Olagunju, the Head, Policy, Research and Statistics Department of the Federal Road Safety Corps, has expressed concern over the high rate of deaths through auto accidents on Nigerian roads.
Olagunju, in a paper entitled: “Avoidable Tears of Ember”, said road traffic crashes had become a major cause of death worldwide, claiming more than 300,000 people and injuring between 10 million and 15 million yearly.
The paper was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
He said: “Nigeria has one of the highest road traffic crash figures in the world, though there is a trend down due to the efforts of the FRSC and the contributions of other stakeholders.
“However, we still need to sustain efforts to make our roads safer.”
Olagunju added that between 1960 and 2012, some 1,060,507 crashes were recorded in Nigeria, with 322,427 deaths and 1,016,299 injuries.
He added: “In 2012 alone, there was a report of a total of 4,260 deaths on Nigerian roads; an average of 12 persons died daily and with 20,752 injured.
“Hence, on the average, 69 persons were either injured or killed on our roads daily; 48,114 persons were involved in 6,269 documented cases.
“This means, on the average of one hour, 0.7, that is an approximated one crash occurred on the road and 5.5, that is, six persons are involved in a crash within an hour.
“Nigeria has five deaths per 10,000 vehicles and four deaths per 100,000 human population.”
Describing the figures as unacceptable, he said most accidents occurred during the last quarter of the year.
He said: “Many of these preventable accidents, unnecessary loss of lives and avoidable waste of resources in terms of damaged vehicles and expenses on hospitalisation occur during the last quarter of the year.
“It is this time of the year that you experience more of bills payments, repairs of damaged roads and infrastructure as well as loss of man hours.”
Olagunju called for the cooperation of all stakeholders to ensure that accidents were greatly reduced during the ember months.
“We, however, call on all road users to spare some thoughts on the causes of crashes, especially during the ’ember months’ and strive to avoid accident causation situation or factors.”
Olagunju warned against drunkenness, drug addiction, recklessness, disregard of road traffic signs, overspeeding, overloading and other traffic rule violations.
He also advised motorists against distractions such as phoning or texting while driving, poor maintenance of vehicles and taking of unnecessary risks on the road.