In its report on 'Safety on Nigerian Roads', NOIPolls said that 71 per cent of participants in the poll believe that roads are not safe; with 82 per cent associating bad roads to majority of crashes and 72 per cent listing reckless driving among the main causes of accidents on Nigerian roads.
"Nigerians are of the opinion that the federal government can make the roads safer by fixing the bad roads and empowering relevant agencies such as FRSC and VIO to carry out their duties effectively," the report stated. "Finally, with the 'Ember' months now here, NOIPolls suggests the need for increased media campaign and sensitisation in this season to encourage safe driving."
The 'Ember' months refer to the last four months of the year when most Nigerians engage in a frenzy of travelling in preparations for Christmas. Several reasons have been presented by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and general public as the causes of increased occurrences of road accidents and death on the roads within these months. Some of these include the increased numbers of road users and vehicles on the roads, the lack of proper implementation of traffic safety regulation such as road-worthiness tests and driver licensing, as well as bad condition of some Nigerian roads.
Furthermore, bad habits such as overloading, speeding, drunk driving, use of cell phones while driving and dangerous driving have been identified by the FRSC as significant preventable causes of road accidents and deaths on Nigerian roads during these months. Thus, FRSC has been known to increase road safety campaigns, sensitisation, patrol and road law enforcement during this season.
The responses
Participants in the poll were asked five questions:
1. In Nigeria, how safe are the roads in Nigeria?
Majority of the participants, with 71 percent, said Nigerian roads were unsafe; 58 percent said the roads were "somewhat unsafe" and 13 percent said the roads were "very unsafe". Only 13 percent of the participants said Nigerian roads were safe, with 12 percent saying the roads were "somewhat safe" and one percent saying the roads were very safe. 16 percent of the participants said the roads were "neither safe nor unsafe".
A geo-political zone based analysis of the results showed that the South-East region had the highest number of participants, with 82 percent who believed that roads were unsafe and the South-South was the second highest with 79 percent. The North-Central, with 18 percent, had the highest number of participants who believed that roads were safe; and the North-West had the second highest with 16 percent.
2. Why do you think roads are safe or unsafe?
The 13 percent who said Nigerian roads were safe were asked why they believed this and 62 percent of them said it was because "FRSC is engaging in effective monitoring of the roads". 38 percent of them had this belief because "there are on-going construction and maintenance works on some roads and they are improving".
Of the 71 percent who believed the roads were unsafe, 72 percent said they had this belief because "Most roads are bad and lack maintenance". Other reasons stated included "Bad materials or poor construction of roads", "Drivers' recklessness", "poor road networks or no road signs or heavy duty vehicles", "Inadequate security on roads or armed robbers" and "untrained drivers or uncompleted projects".
Adewale Babatunde, an engineer based in Ibadan, told Telegraph that he believed Nigerian roads were unsafe because the roads were bad and full of potholes, vehicles in poor state were allowed to ply the roads , speed limits were not respected and drivers were not well educated on driving regulations.
3. What do you think is mainly responsible for road accidents in Nigeria?
82 percent said "bad roads" were the leading cause; 73 percent said "drivers' recklessness"; 19 percent said "drivers don't go to driving school; 18 percent said "drunk driving; 14 percent said "vehicles are not road worthy and five percent said "no road signs".
The results showing bad roads as the most common cause of accidents in Nigeria confirmed previous findings showing that Nigeria ranked hight on a list of countries that had unsafe roads.
According to Daniel Ucheaga, an IT consultant in Abuja, the lack of an organised system of punishing people who violated driving regulations. He believed that the mere payment of fines was not enough to make people change and drive more responsibly.
"There are so many factors, really but I think the main reason is that people are impatient and they know they can get away with breaking the rules," Daniel said.
4. In your opinion, which of the following should be mainly responsible for reducing the number of road accidents in Nigeria?
49 percent of the participants said the Federal, State and Local levels of government should be mainly responsible for reducing the rate of accidents in Nigeria. 36 percent of the participants said actual road users should be responsible for reducing the rate of road accidents; 14 percent said it was the responsibility of government agencies such as FRSC, VIO and LASTMA and two percent believed everyone was responsible.
Results across the geo-political zones showed that the North-Central had the highest number of participants (58%) who felt the government should be responsible for reducing road accidents. The North-East had the highest number (40%) who thought that actual road users should be responsible; and the South-West had the highest number of participants (22%) who believed that government agencies should be responsible.
5. In your opinion, what do you think the government can do to reduce road accidents on Nigerian roads?
70 percent of the participants said the government should fix bad roads; 35 percent said the Government should empower government agencies such as FRSC and VIO, to properly carry out their duties; 34 percent said the Government should properly monitor road projects; 33 percent said traffic laws should be enforced; 23 percent said road networks needed to be upgraded and 14 percent said road projects needed to be completed on time.
Kenneth Uwagbor, a health and environmental safety officer who spoke with Telegraph, said that while construction of roads was important, there were other steps that needed to be taken. He said, "A reorientation of road users by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on safe road usage and complying with traffic rules, will make a difference.
"The FRSC can spearhead this and organise road usage seminars but it is everybody's job so they have to involve other organisations such as the National Union of Road Transport Workers, other similar bodies and individuals for an effective outcome".
FRSC spokesperson, Jonas Agwu, says that safety on roads depends on the road, the vehicle and the owner, "with driver's attitude accounting for over 80% of causative factors for road crashes".
Mr Agwu told Telegraph that in the past one year, excessive speed was discovered to have caused over 65 percent of the accidents on Nigerian roads.
"…in the last one year, despite government efforts to improve road condition, our findings in the FRSC indicate that excessive speed account for over 65% of road crashes in the country," he said. "This explains why the FRSC initiated a strategy with relevant stakeholders to introduce speed limiting device for every vehicle as part of measures to address this trend. So for us in the FRSC, while we acknowledge the need for government to sustain the tempo of on-going roads rehabilitation, we maintain that it is the bad use of the roads that is responsible for road crashes.
It then follows that some level of personal responsibility is required from a driver to ensure the safety of all road users. This include under going the appropriate training in a certified as provided by the Driving School Standardization Programme, avoiding distractive driving, imbibing defensive driving culture. Since the mechanical factor (vehicle) is the 3rd leg on which safety rests, the status of a vehicle requires the owner to ensure proper maintenance of his/her vehicle in addition to adhering to stipulated traffic rules and regulations."
The NOIPolls conducted this poll from May 7 to May 9, 2013 and it involved telephone interviews with 1,002 randomly picked Nigerians of legal age, across the six geo-political zones.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Etisalat. Enjoy high speed mobile broadband on any of our Easyblaze plans. Visit www.etisalat.com.ng for details.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment