The Emergence of Motorcycle in Urban Transportation in Nigeria and its Implication on Traffic Safety.

Nigeria has been branded a country with an unenviable record of road traffic accidents in the world. The contribution of road transport to the Gross Domestic product of the country has been adversely affected as a result of loses suffered from road traffic accidents and its attendant loss of property and human life. The crisis that engulfed the process of urban mobility in Nigeria in the early 80's arising from the collapse of government organized urban mass transit subsequently made commuting in most urban centres a difficult task, this made the introduction of alternative approach of easing the movement of urban commuters imperative. The dimension and pattern of road traffic accident has been adversely affected with the emergence of non motorized vehicle particularly motorcycle as an alternative in the process of ameliorating the difficulties encountered by urban commuters. The situation with road accident phenomenon in the country requires urgent attention more so that the operation of non motorized vehicle in urban commuting has changed the trend of road traffic accident in terms of its magnitude, pattern, nature and frequency to a dangerous level in the country. This to a large extent has brought the emergence of a new dimension to road traffic accident fatality. The increasing wave of road traffic accident is a corollary of the uncoordinated process and nonchalant attitude of motorcycle operators in complying conscientiously with traffic management and control measures of the country. This paper will bring to focus the magnitude and the spatial pattern of motorcycle accidents in the country with its attendant implication on traffic safety. Adequate attempt will be made to evaluate the magnitude of motorcycle accident mortality in terms of gender and age indices coupled with the evaluation of the spatial variations among the states of the federation in Nigeria. While, consideration will be given to the attendant negative consequences of the increasing magnitude of road traffic accidents as it affects the 36 states of the Federation. Some of the major contentious issues negating the effective and smooth operation of non motorized vehicle in consonance with composite nature of vehicular traffic in Nigerian urban centres will be examined with the desire to evolve a sustainable transport policy. For the covering abstract seeITRD E135582.