Atubi: Nigeria, One Of The Countries With Very High Road Fatalities In The World

By Daniel Dafe

Professor of Transportation Geography, Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, Augustus Orowhigo Atubi, has said that Nigeria is one of the countries with very high road fatalities in the world.

Prof. Atubi who said this while delivering the institution’s 92nd Inaugural Lecture, titled: ‘Road Traffic Accident Occurrences, Identification of Cycles and Periodic Oscillations of Casualties on Nigerian roads: Unsafe at any Speed,’ added that “in Nigeria, an average of 12 people died daily in 2019 road accidents crashes.”

“In all, 4,163 people were killed in crashes during the period,” he said.

He continued: “However, 59,724 people were involved in road crashes in which 14,425 vehicles were involved, while 27,408 were injured in the accidents and 27,523 escaped without injuries,” according to FRSC statistics in 2020.

“The number of lives lost to road traffic accidents from January 2013 to June 2018 are as follows: 2013 – 5,539; 2014 – 4,430; 2015 – 5,400; 2016 – 5,053; 2017 – 5,049; 2018 – 5,449. This tally indicates that in 2018, no fewer than 126 lives had been wasted in road crashes. Summation of these figures gives a heartrending total of 28,195 lives crushed in 68 months, an equivalent of 415 lives per months, 14 persons day, and two lives every four hours.

“There were 33.7 deaths per 100,000 people in Nigeria every year, making Nigeria one of the countries with the highest number of fatality in Africa. Zimbabwe has the worst road fatality in the world with 74.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The world average is 17.4- Africa is 26.6, and according to the International Transport Forum (ITF), road safety annual report for 2018 while Norway has the least road fatality with two deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.”

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The university don said that according to NBS in 2018, the number of registered vehicles in Nigeria was put at 11,653,871 with an estimated population of 198 million, noting that the vehicle per population ratio was 0.06.

“Since most crashes involve at least two vehicles and given that 10,026 crashes were recorded in 2017, it means that at least 20,000 of the 11,654 million registered vehicles were affected in the crashes. The figure would be more, if multiple auto crashes were included.

“Approximately 1.25 million people die each year on the world’s roads, and between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries,” he revealed.

According to him, citing WHO, “results show that road traffic injuries remain an important public health problem, particularly for low – income and middle – income countries like Nigeria.”

He said: “By most accounts, speed has been identified as a major cause of road traffic accidents; influencing the risk of occurrence and the severity of injuries arising from such accidents. Speed contributes to almost 30 percent of deaths on the road in high – income countries and about 50 percent in low-income nations, including Nigeria (WHO, 2017).

Stating that available statistics informed the speed control policy of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), je said that the first phase was inaugurated nationwide on February 1, 2017.

Prof. Atubi hinted that “the policy prescribes the installation of speed limiting device in vehicles to keep them within limits stipulated by the Nigeria highway code” and that “no matter how the driver tends to accelerate, his vehicle cannot exceed the speed limit programmed in the device.”

“Although there has been some improvements made by the FRSC in conjunction with the police force but there are still lots of room for improvement. Presently, both of them do not have sufficient resources for checking speed violations, careless and dangerous driving and parking offences among others.

“Unfortunately, such an important issue as reducing road traffic accidents in Nigeria has not yet received the adequate attention that it deserves,” he noted.

Speaking further, the Inaugural lecturer hinted that “road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of children and young people aged between 05 and 29 years.”

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“Globally of all road traffic deaths, pedestrians and cyclists account for 26% and motorcycle riders and passengers account for 28%. This risk of a road traffic death remains three times higher in low-income countries than in high-income countries, with rates highest in Africa.

Atubi said there was need for new traffic safety strategies.

These, he said requires a paradigm shift, a change in the ways that risks are measured and potential safety strategies are evaluated, quoting Hughes, May, Trinler and Warn and Litman.

“Reducing road traffic accident is a global challenge and succeeding will require the involvement of multiple stakeholders at the global, national and community levels,” he noted.