Transport

‘1,307 Nigerian vehicles involved in road accidents in May’

A total of 1,307 vehicles were involved in road traffic accidents across the country in May, according to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC). The Corps said in its report of road traffic accidents for the month which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday that cars came top in the number of vehicles involved in the crashes with 469 cases.

This figure, it said, represented 35.9 per cent of the total number, followed by minibuses with 258 cases, representing 19.7 per cent, while motorcycles trailed with 233, which accounted for 17.8 per cent. The corps said Trucks recorded 158 cases, representing 12.1 per cent.

It said that vehicle categorisation indicated that a total of 785 vehicles involved in road traffic accidents during the period under review were commercial vehicles, representing 60.1 per cent of the overall figure. The report said that private and government vehicles followed with 508 or 38.9 per cent and 14 and 1.1 per cent in that order.

The corps identified the Kaduna-Abuja road as recording the highest accidents in May with 51 cases, with 14 vehicles or 22 per cent less than that of April. The route also recorded the highest number of deaths for the period with 29 cases, while the Oyo-Ogbomosho road and Kaduna-Zaira road had the least record of deaths in accidents during the period with 14 and 13 cases, respectively.

The FRSC appealed to the Federal Government to provide it with “Special Intervention Fund’’ to enable it to, through “aggressive public enlightenment”,  stem the contributing factors to accidents and deaths. The corps maintained that speed limit violation remained the major cause among 872 factors identified as responsible for road crashes in the country. NAN

Pix shows a road accident in Nigeria