From Basil Obasi, Abuja
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) yesterday released the Q1 2017 ‘Road Transport Data’ report which reflected that a total of 2,556 road crashes occurred in the country during the first quarter of this year out of which 8,672 Nigerians got injured while 1,466 died.
A review of the report shows that 8,151 of the 8,672 Nigerians that got injured, representing 94 percent of the figure, are adults while the remaining 521, representing 6 percent of the figure are children.
According to the report, a total of 1,466 Nigerians got killed in the road traffic crashes recorded in Q1; 1,363 of the 1,466 Nigerians that got killed, representing 9 percent of the figure, are adults while the remaining 103 Nigerians, representing 7 percent of the figure are children. Also, 1,164 male Nigerians, representing 79 percent got killed in road crashes in Q1 while 302 female Nigerians, representing 21 percent, got killed.
The NBS had, in the report, attributed 42.7 percent of the major causes of the total road crashes reported in the first quarter to speed violation, while loss of control and dangerous driving followed closely as they both accounted for 12.73 percent and 7.34 percent of the total road crashes recorded during the period under review.
A disaggregation of the road accidents, according to state, shows that FCT recorded the highest number of road crashes in Q1 2017, closely followed by Kaduna and Niger states; while Borno and Bayelsa states recorded the least misfortunes during this period.
The NBS further revealed that Kaduna state, Katsina state and FCT in that order, came top with the number of people killed in road traffic crashes, while Kaduna recorded the highest percent of road crashes due to use of phone while driving.
“Shockingly, Kaduna also emerged as the state with the highest percent of road crashes due to tyre burst while FCT recorded the highest percent of road crashes due to loss of control during the period under review”, the NBS stated.