By Amos Tauna
Nigeria’s ‘Federal Road Safety Corps’ (FRSC), has observed that there are 33.7 deaths per 100,000 population in Nigeria every year, making the country one of the countries with the highest number of fatalities in Africa.
FRSC Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, stated this during the flag-off of the Global Road Safety Week at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Secretariat, Kaduna.
Represented by the Deputy Corps Commander, Yomi Asaniyan, the Corps Marshal said according to the World Health Organization, WHO, Nigeria with population of 178.5 million had over 7.6 million cars plying its 204,000 kilometre road network.
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According to him, statistics shows that there was a high pressure on the road network which makes the prevalence of road accidents high in the country.
He said, “FRSC in its mitigating efforts has introduced installation of speed limiter devices in commercial vehicles and has been monitoring compliance.”
The boss said that the level of compliance was at 33 per cent as at the time he was addressing the newsmen.
He explained that over 1.5 million people commute using commercial vehicles, adding that: “This is one of the many reasons why FRSC has ordered that commercial vehicles should install speed limiter.
“Countries successfully reducing road traffic deaths have done so by prioritizing safety when managing speed with proven strategies to address speed in building roads to include features that calm, establishing speed limits to the function of each road, enforcing speed limits, installing in-vehicle technologies and raising awareness about the dangers of speeding.
”President Muhammadu Buhari had endorsed the implementation of the mandatory installation of the device in October, 2016. The House of Representatives resolution of 23rd June, 2016 also approved the introduction of speed limiter in accordance with the extant provisions of the FRSC Establishment Act (2007).
“The Corps had embarked on extensive consultation with relevant stakeholders and elaborate public education programs carried out.
”FRSC commenced a subtle enforcement of the speed limiting device in all commercial vehicles in the country on 1st October, 2016.
“The decision was predicated on the analysis of data generated from Road Traffic Crashes around the country which revealed that speed and the involvement of commercial vehicles consistently accounted for about 60% of Road Traffic Crashes in Nigeria.
