Road crashes kill 400, injure 518 in 3 months
North-West zone records highest death rate of 129 in 13 crashes Over N3.2 billion lost to crashes caused by articulated vehicles
In spite of the enforcement of installation of speed limiting device in commercial vehicles nationwide on February 1 by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) no fewer than 400 lives were lost to road accidents within the first quarter of this year even as the Commission disclosed that the sum of N3.2 billion was lost to road crashes caused by articulated vehicles within the same period.
Tragedy struck the sleepy community of Owode-Elede Ikorodu area of Lagos on Friday, February 17, 2017 when a bus belonging to GUO Transport Services Limited which was conveying travellers from Enugu plunged into Owode-Mile 12 River along LagosIkorodu road in Lagos.
The spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency, South West zone, Ibrahim Farinloye, had confirmed that three people were recovered dead while 48 others were rescued alive. Among the rescued, 23 sustained various degrees of injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment.
A survivor of the accident, Kenneth Aaron, reportedly said: “I entered the bus in Onitsha with four of my brothers. The bus passed through Ikorodu because of the ongoing construction on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. It seemed an accident happened in the area before which spilled diesel onto the road. By the time our bus got to the spot, it skidded, hit the culvert and plunged into the river.”
It was gathered that the 50-seater bus was full with passengers and had additional standing passengers (attachment) who were picked on the way before the accident occurred.
On March 5, 2017, four policemen were killed after their vehicle had a crash along Isiwu Road, Imota, in the Ikorodu area of the state. The deceased policemen, who were attached to the X-Squad, were said to be on a surveillance patrol when the incident occurred around 1pm on the fateful Sunday.
The above cases are among several cases of road accidents that occurred between January and March this year. This is despite the Federal Road Safety Corps enforcement of the installation of speed limiting device in commercial vehicles nationwide on February 1. The FRSC had commenced full enforcement after a grace period of what it called ‘advisory enforcement’ without apprehending motorists.
Investigation by Daily Trust on Sunday revealed that no fewer than 400 deaths were recorded while 518 others were injured in 90 reported cases of road accidents between January and March this year.
An analysis of the reported cases shows that January recorded the highest cases of road accidents within the period in review as there were 288 accidents recorded. There were 150 deaths recorded in the month while 237 victims were injured.
The month of February recorded the second highest rate of road accidents as there were 153 reported cases in which 88 people died while 160 others sustained various degrees of injuries.
In the month of March, there were 121 reported cases of road accidents that claimed 162 lives while 121 victims survived with various degrees of injuries.
A further analysis shows that the North West zone of the country recorded the highest number of deaths in 13 reported cases of road accidents. A total of 129 deaths were recorded while 163 others sustained injuries. Some of the accidents recorded within the zone occurred along the KatsinaKano road, Malumfashi-Funtua road in Katsina State, Tunga Giwa-Ruwa road in Kebbi State and the Kano Kaduna road.
The South-East zone recorded the second highest death rate in road accidents within the period in review from 11 reported accident cases in which 65 deaths were recorded while 46 victims sustained injuries. Some of the accidents in the zone occurred along the Onitsha- Asaba road, Abakiliki-Enugu road in Ebonyi State as well as the Enugu-Makurdi road.
The South West zone recorded 23 cases of road accidents within the period in which 60 persons lost their lives while 100 others sustained injuries. The North Central zone had nine cases of reported road accidents that claimed 32 lives with 63 injuries while the South-South zone had eight cases of road accidents with 46 deaths and 38 injuries.
Some of the accidents from the south west zone were recorded along the Ibadan-Ife road, Ebule Egba-Ekoro road as well as the ever busy Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
The North-East zone recorded 63 deaths from a total of eight road accidents in which 58 victims survived with various degrees of injuries while the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) had 13 cases of road accidents that claimed 25 lives with 63 injuries.
During the Christmas celebrations last year, the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, said it recorded 187 deaths in 289 crashes.
Bisi Kazeem, Head Media Relations and Strategy of the commission, who disclosed this to journalists in a statement, said the crashes involved 2,185 people with 1,000 people injured, while 998 people were rescued alive.
According to him, 9,619 offenders were arrested for 10,970 offences with 1,426 offenders arraigned in mobile courts while 1,292 people were convicted and five others imprisoned.
Also at the FRSC end of the year management strategy session held in Abuja in December 2017, the Corps Marshal announced that 70 operatives of the commission were killed by reckless drivers this year.
He said that although the figure was lower, compared to the 160 deaths recorded the previous year, the trend was disturbing and needed to be addressed, adding that the FRSC had declared war on reckless drivers because such drivers were responsible for about 40 per cent of deaths of officials of the FRSC in active duty.
“I have been raising this alarm since last year that we are experiencing increase in violence among drivers and lawlessness”, he said.
Earlier in September 2015, the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, had disclosed that a total of 12, 077 road crashes were recorded across the country. The FRSC Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, who had disclosed this in Uyo at a public enlightenment forum for transport stakeholders, regretted that most of the crashes would have been avoided if appropriate safety measures were adopted by the motorists while plying the highways.
Describing the statistics on road crashes as staggering, he reiterated that the speed limiting device would save Nigerians the embarrassment on the highways.
“Most of the road crashes are preventable, if we are able to bring down the speed, we will be saving a lot of lives on our highways,” Mr. Oyeyemi said.
In March this year, the Corps Marshal, Oyeyemi, disclosed that more than N3.2 billion was lost to road crashes caused by articulated vehicles in the first quarter of the year. Oyeyemi who made the disclosure during the joint meeting of National Executive Council and State Chairmen of National Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, held in Kaduna, said that no fewer than 62 road crashes involving 65 tankers were recorded in the first quarter of 2017 with several lives lost.
According to him, most of the crashes occurred in the night, adding that the accidents were largely due to over speeding, night journeys and “use of motor boys to drive tankers.”