his is Nigerian roads. I drive upon and look around! See the profound roadside, neither preference nor denial; as if there would be no need, for fun, anger, or any other reason, but for an individual to get behind the wheel and carelessly jeopardize the health and wellbeing of other drivers and pedestrians. Sometimes, you gaze to see a black and blurred human-shaped image of a� certified" driver inside a speeding car , . .either nodding to the tone of music, caressing a lover or making distractive phone-calls while the car sprint-commute within or above 150km/hr skipping race. A reckless attitude! .His woolly head, the felon, the diseased, the illiterate person are not denied
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Users have the ability to narrow down their search to see the age of the driver, whether speeding or drinking was a factor, and if the driver was wearing a seat belt. One of the most important aspects of the new tool also illustrates which life-saving public policies, such as strong seatbelt laws, are in the chosen area.
However, reckless driving accidents are such a waste. .At the emergency even the hasting, worried and hurried drivers go after the doctor, the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger, the mechanics put up a merry-party. The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping couple, The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town, They pass- I also pass- anything passes- none can be interdicted;None but are accepted- none but are dear to me.
Safe driving would not fall far below what is expected of a competent and careful driver. To drive at twice the speed limit ought to be recognized, objectively, as being too far below acceptable standards. As to "obviousness", this required more than that the danger would have been foreseen to the competent and careful driver. It required that the danger would be obvious to the competent and careful driver.
"Traffic accident" is a euphemism for the gross negligence that perpetuates this carnage; far from being unpredictable and unavoidable, most traffic-related injuries could be prevented through simple, cheap safety strategies.
Recently the UN general assembly voted and convened the first ministerial summit on road safety. The stakes could hardly be higher. Traffic injuries in developing countries kill on the scale of malaria or tuberculosis. For children between five and 14, traffic injuries are the biggest single source of death, and roads are second only to HIV/Aids in killing people aged between 15 and 29. In contrast to rich countries, developing countries' casualty lists are dominated by pedestrians, cyclists and passengers in public transport vehicles.
The world's most dangerous roads are in Africa . Nigeria has a fatality rate of one death per 10,000 vehicles. Traffic deaths are climbing most rapidly in this nation, where rising prosperity fuels car sales and investment in roads. Intent to intimidate, outperform other traffic, to have fun or to express anger, or an example of road rage is reckless driving. It is driving without regard for the safety or courtesy of other drivers or pedestrians .It causes 50-63% of road accidents in this country.
The costs go beyond personal suffering. Lost productivity as a result of traffic injury wipes out 1% to 2% of output in developing nations. In some countries, more than half of the surgical and trauma beds in hospitals are taken up by road victims. And, for the poor, a traffic injury is often a cause of greater poverty. When cars hit women farmers in Eleme-Oyigbo axis, there is no welfare system to pick up the pieces. driving at these speeds on public roads without any warning by sounding the siren or flashing lights in these conditions, however good and however skilled the driver, amounted to dangerous driving. That would mean that any driver of an emergency vehicle, driving at twice the speed limit, whatever the road conditions, however must have warning to other road users.
However, there is a distinction between an officer using a vehicle on police business exceeding the speed limits, and an officer merely practicing his skills or familiarizing himself with a new car. An officer does not need to drive a car at 150 mph to familiarize him with it. Thus, whether the officer will be convicted will depend on a policy balancing exercise. Advanced police drivers must indeed practice at least some of their high speed skills on public roads. If this kind of practice is stopped, traffic officers may be thrown into emergency situations with relatively little experience
Every country has its own variant of the road injury virus. Dangerous drivers, badly maintained vehicles, poor pedestrian safety design and weak enforcement of standards are common themes. Add to this lethal cocktail lax regulation and government indifference, and you have a perfect equation for loss of life. There is no better place to get a view of the traffic pandemic than Port Harcourt and Lagos .
This is a car crash capital, with more than 2,000 deaths a year. In the city, people compete for space with cars, trucks, auto-rickshaws, hand-pulled carts and buses. Meanwhile, out on the expressway, drivers of 4x4s and trucks can speed past barefoot women carrying firewood. Because the highway slices through communities, children put their lives at risk trying to cross the road.
Cutting road deaths does not take rocket science. Building road safety into transport infrastructure design and enforcing traffic rules are proven life-savers. Since 2000, Nigeria has cut road deaths by a third through a cut-speed safety strategy. Countries such as Thailand and Vietnam have combined public education and law enforcement to increase helmet use. And in Bogot� , Colombia , a combination of road safety and transport initiatives has halved road deaths in less than a decade.
Why, then, are Nigerian governments failing to protect their citizens? Partly because the victims lack a political voice. But often traffic death and injury is viewed as the inevitable collateral damage that comes with economic growth. The Nigerian Red Cross and some Aid donors are part of the problem. Most have yet to grasp the fact that an ethical transport policy has to be part of poverty reduction strategies.
Take the case of sub-Saharan Africa . Two years ago, the G8 pledged $1.2bn for road development in the region. Road safety financing amounts to less than 1% of such package. Meanwhile, with a $4bn transport infrastructure portfolio, the World Bank and regional development banks employ just two full-time road safety specialists among them.
The Global Road Safety Campaign wants the UN summit to agree a $300m fund for building road safety capacity in developing countries. It calls on donors to invest 10% of road infrastructure budgets on safety. But governments don't have to wait for a summit meeting to act - and their citizens cannot afford delay. It is time for a 21st-century transport policy that puts human safety at the heart of road management.
It must be acknowledged that motor vehicle accidents don't just happen. They are caused. Sometimes they are caused by a vehicle's mechanical problems. However, a high proportion of accidents are directly blamable on human factors. The clearest example includes drunken drivers, intoxication with drugs and alcohol, speeding and fatigue. Drink driving cases usually increase during festive times, Easter and Christmas. The degree of acceptance of this dangerous and reckless driving is not always consistent. How can one explain the comparative tolerance of speeding and drunkenness by drivers and in some cases by passengers?
Other factors affecting road safety include the road system, driver training and licensing, pedestrian awareness and physical disabilities e.g. poor eyesight of drivers. Many roads in Nigeria have become death traps with potholes dotted along the length and breadth of the roads. Broken-down vehicles or fallen trees could be seen blocking roads. Road building equipment are left on roads and trenches are left uncovered or without warning signs. Road signs, on the very few occasions they are present, are often unhelpful if not deceptive. Some of the new roads are very poorly built and soon lapse into disrepair, posing danger to road users.
The whole driver licensing system in Nigeria needs a complete overhaul. There are too many unlicensed/unqualified drivers with little or no knowledge of road rules in this nation. Some people even get their licences without having even taken that flawed driving test. This means the wrong people are acquiring licences for which they are not qualified to hold. There are a number of drivers on the roads with very poor eyesight or an insufficient field of vision e.g. poor vision for night driving, and there is no mechanism to check this.
The failure of users to comply with basic road safety legislation is another cause of accidents. Finally, lack of resources and ineptitude coupled with corruption on the part of officials has combined to render ineffective vehicle examination and enforcement of road rules.
The effects of accidents are very well documented and I do not intend to go into details but the main effects include physical pain and disfigurement due to traumatic injuries; physical disabilities (temporary and permanent) which prevent normal activities, like walking and working, financial problems due to wrecked property, medical care, auto repair or replacement, and lost time from work death of friends or family members, some are the breadwinners. Scarce medical and technical resources are used up at the crash site and in hospital, limited foreign currency is used up importing dressings, drugs and vehicle parts. Innocent children are often direct victims of road mishaps and many become orphaned from these accidents. This imposes harsh social conditions made much worse in a country without social security benefits. Road casualties, whether dead or injured, represent a cost to society amounting to billions and an incalculable human cost.
Legislation should be passed soon to make wearing of seat belts compulsory in all cars and mini buses. There is evidence that wearing seatbelts reduces the impact in the case of accidents. Enforcing the seatbelt rules will also help in the overloading of taxis, cars and minibuses. Legislation should also be passed to require a compulsory eye testing for all drivers either every three years or at time of licence renewal. There is no use passing laws if they are not to be enforced. We might need to review existing legislation and put in place appropriate enforcement regimes. The police are very highly visible on Nigerian roads but unlike most developed countries their visibility is for the purpose of extorting money from drivers not for enforcement of road rules. It is time that visibility becomes a deterrent to speeding, drink driving etc as is the case in many developed countries.
The system will always present failures. Therefore we need to change attitudes and behaviour of road user�s pedestrians and drivers for the better. The media must use the medium to reshape the minds of the people towards road safety. Sustained public awareness campaign and information dissemination must be undertaken. Road safety must be made an integral component of driver training. Public education plays a big part in educating the driver on safety and getting the driver to obey the traffic laws. There will always be people who will drive recklessly but it is important that the community gets involved in this. I will suggest the introduction of the safe community concept (a concept which promotes injury prevention and insists that it is not acceptable to drink and drive. Educating drivers and the public on driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs is gainful. To overcome effects of fatigue drivers on long trips should also take a break after every two hours. The Stop, Revive, Survive, slogan in Australia or some similar slogan could be adopted.
We could begin teaching road safety in the schools even at nursery level. We can integrate traffic education in the contents of the different disciplines or curricular areas in the schools just as we used to do in Civics lessons. High-risk accident sites (black spots) should be identified and measures taken to limit the carnage on those sections of the road. This is very important for it is government (local,state or Federal) that builds and has the responsibility to maintain these roads. It also has responsibility for ensuring that vehicles that ply these public roads meet certain minimum standards.
In this respect they must also accept some responsibility for the carnage on the roads. In established democracies, victims of road traffic accidents have taken action against agencies responsible for roads where causes of accident have been traceable to such facilities as uncovered drainage system or pothole. Substantial damages were awarded against a local government agency for not filling a pothole leading to an accident.
With rapidly advancing frontiers of global democratization, the time is not far away when road maintenance may pose legal problems on responsibility and liability for many road authorities in Nigeria. It is time, It is time, especially with Christmas period not far away, we all got together to work on reducing the carnage on Nigerian Roads.
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