In the late fifties and early sixties there was little or no concern about road safety matters in Nigeria. Little attention was given to road traffic crashes prevention strategies and remedies. The reason was not far fetched as economic activities were quite low, and since transportation is interwoven with the economy, the incidents of road traffic crashes were invariably low in relation to low vehicle volume plying the equally scanty routes in the country. Besides, haulage was undertaken mostly by railways or waterways. Development brought about urbanization, education, and increase in infrastructural development i.e road network e.t.c. These developments in economic activities gave rise to numerical increase in vehicular statistics to meet up with the sharp demand of a developing economy. The introductory part of this paper presents the road crash situation in Nigeria in bold relief, with a grand total of 969,850 reported road crashes from 1960 - 2004, as well as 275,178 person killed with 843,691 people injured during the same period. A closer look at the same table shows that a dramatic reduction has taken place in the rate of road crash from 1988. Analysts have ascribed this improvement to the activities of the Federal Road Safety Commission in Nigeria since 1988. The mandate of the Federal Road Safety Commission is to reduce the rate of traffic crashes to the minimum since as at this moment, zero vision has not been contemplated in Nigeria. Enforcement and raising awareness are the main strategies adopted by the Commission as the means of promoting road safety in Nigeria (A). For the coveriract see ITRD E217780.
Abstract