Night Trips

Sometime in August 2021, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, reeled out the status report for the first half of 2021(January to June).

The breakdown, according to him, showed that there were 5,320 road traffic crashes, involving 8,808 vehicles with 2,471 deaths. A further breakdown showed that 33,737 persons were involved, 15,882 of them sustained various degrees of injuries, while 15,398 were rescued without injuries. In that same report, he raised the alarm on the increasing state of road traffic deaths at night and the planned commencement of night patrol by the Corps. I know that I have treated this topic extensively especially its implications. I had high-.alighted on the ugly crash incidences associated with night trips, and the causative factors like lack of highway rescue facilities, reduced visibility, as well as other sundry issues that hamper the course of night trip safety. Today, I wish to continue with an observation by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), a government agency charged with road maintenance, that our road signs and markings, in terms of their shapes, colour and reflectivity, do not meet international standards. The consequence of this is that driving is made more difficult and hazardous because of the absence of the appropriate road furniture to guide motorists at night and during had or poor weather. The result is the recourse by transport operators to violate the provisions of the National Road Traffic Regulations by fixing extra lights, which has led to crashes and deaths.

This is why FERMA opined that if maximum reflectivity is maintained in our pavement markings, signs and delineators, there would be increase in night time and poor weather safety on our roads and ultimately, fewer crashes, injuries and fatalities may be recorded. Retro-reflectivity is a critical element that has helped the US Department of Transport to achieve its safety goals of reducing fatality by 20 per cent.

Inadequate visibility because of environmental factors, which make it difficult to detect vehicles and other road users, as well as poor eye sight of road users, are all listed as factors influencing road crashes. All these are prevalent among night time operators. It is perhaps pertinent to dwell more on the issue of visibility, since that is actually seen globally as the number one factor militating against night driving.

Ninety per cent of a driver’s reaction depends solely on vision, and vision is greatly hampered at night. Depth perception, colour recognition, and peripheral vision are compromised after sundown.

Basically, once darkness creeps in, you lose many of your reference points on the road. Without them, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a fair judgement of the road.

What the driver depends on to guide him in visibility are artificial sources of light, like his headlights, streetlights where available, or in most cases, headlights of oncoming vehicles. But we need to know that headlights only allow us to see a small portion of the road ahead, but our peripheral vision is not as sharp as in the day. Of course, while I truly believe and know that Nigeria is on her way to global best practices in road infrastructure, I still would want to bring to the fore the fact that our expressways are not lit as is obtainable in other developed countries. And till that happens, travelling is filled with hazards. And even with the streets lighted up, other issues as raised in this piece still militate against safety in night time travelling, going by global reports on night travel.

I would also like us to look at the excessive speed at which night buses drive. The National Road Traffic Regulations, 2004, is explicit on the speed limit of 90km/hr for buses and taxis on the expressway. How many of such buses truly drive at 90km/hr, and how many of us really worry about such speed even when some of these drivers do so under the influence of alcohol and drugs? Yet we delude ourselves that we can never be victims.

It may interest you to know that most night drivers drive under the influence of alcohol or other narcotics, with the misguided notion that these will help them in staying awake and maintaining focus on the road.

But the reverse is actually the case. Add up a sleep-induced state of mind, and an alcohol-induced state of mind and what you have is catastrophe begging to occur. When you further add this to a driver who is going above stipulated or common sense speed limit simply because he believes the road is dear, then the catastrophe becomes monumental. With sleep, alcohol, and the deluded sense of a clear road, the driver’s mental faculties are drastically dulled and his response time to sudden danger greatly reduced.

Perhaps, I need to make reference to the macabre incidence that assaulted our sensibilities couple of years back, where some night travelers had a most horrible encounter with armed robbers who, for some unexplained reasons, took pleasure in running the bus over their victims. And of course, they had ample time to carry out their devilish sport because assistance of any kind is farfetched at night on Nigerian roads. That is the fearful scenario with night trips. Night marauders are ever ready to turn an anticipated hitch-free trip into a nightmare.

Getting a mechanic, vulcaniser or other such roadside car repairer during the day is relatively easy in case of a fault development in the vehicle. However, reverse is the case at night, since roadside mechanics, vulcanisers, and other such maintenance people are practically conscious of the security risks involved at night. By this time, they do not operate, thus further worsening the situation for night travelers.