Sad Stat: Road Accidents Claim 322,427 Lives In Nigeria In 52 Years

Road accidents in Nigeria have claimed a total of 322,427 lives between 1960 and 2012, according to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in its 2012 annual report released recently.

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Analysts however say the number of deaths may be more than the given figure since most people involved in road accidents die weeks after and such deaths may not have been recorded officially.

Information exclusively gathered by BusinessDay from the FRSC dashboard reveals that speed violation accounts for 35 percent, as the highest causative factor of road traffic crashes. The second highest causative factor is loss of control that accounts for 17 percent, even as dangerous driving occupied the third causative factor at 17 percent.

The FRSC lists the most causes of road crashes to include human, mechanical and environmental factors.

Bad roads, route violation and obstruction accounted for 2 percent each, while burst tyres 9 percent. Others are brake failure 5 percent, mechanically faults and wrongful overtaking tied on 3 percent in the top 10 probable causative factors of road traffic crashes in 2012.

Between 1960 and 2012, a total of 1,060,507 crashes were recorded in Nigeria, with 322,427 deaths and 1,016,299 injuries.

2012 alone had a total of 4,260 reported deaths on Nigerian roads, representing an average of 12 persons dying daily. 20,752 injuries were recorded in the year, translating to an average of 57 injuries daily.

Hence, on the average, 69 persons were either injured or killed on the roads daily, while 48,114 persons were involved in 6,269 documented cases. This means on the average of one hour, approximately one crash occurred on the road and 5.5, that is 6 persons, were involved in a crash within an hour.

In the reviewed period, Nigeria had five deaths per 10,000 vehicles and four deaths per 100,000 persons, according to the report from FRSC. Analysts say these figures are still very high, hence unacceptable. Both the elite and the powerful as well as the common man are not spared in these preventable deaths.

Many of these preventable accidents, unnecessary loss of lives and avoidable waste of resources, in terms of damaged vehicles, expenses on hospitalisation bills, repairs of damaged roads and infrastructure, as well as loss of man-hours, actually occurred during the last quarter of the year.

Source: BusinessDay

2 COMMENTS

  1. Our own Federal Road Safety Corps, instead of developing strategies to reduce this menace, are falling over production of new number plates and forcing it on the already impoverished people. While the people are dying like chicken on our roads, they are laughing to the bank with the proceeds of new number plate contract.