FG moves to strengthen institutional capacity to reduce road accidents – Minister
FG moves to strengthen institutional capacity to reduce road accidents – Minister
NAN-H-86
Accidents
By Taiye Edeni/Angela Atabo
Abuja, May 8, 2017(NAN) The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Ameachi, has said that the Federal Government was working to strengthen institutional capacity to drive National Road Safety efforts toward reducing road accidents.
Represented by Mr Saliu Zakari, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Ameachi said this at the Joint Press Conference of the United Nations 4th Global Road Safety Week in Abuja on Monday.
He said that the government discovered that there was an overlap in the responsibilities of various agencies in the sector and had taken the responsibility to synergise them, through the ministry.
He said that the ministry had been working to improving the safety of all road users, especially the vulnerable: pedestrians, bicyclists and motor cyclists.
‘’The Ministry is focused on developing comprehensive programmes to implore road user behaviour, through the development and adoption of model road safety legislation.
‘’This will also be done through strategic policies and sustained or increased enforcement of road safety laws and standards by the relevant agency.
‘’The ministry recently concluded the urban road transport policy and road transport manual which would serve as guide for town planners and road users respectively.
‘’We have been working with the Ministry of Health, the Road Safety and the VIO to ensure prompt emergency response.
‘’This is to avoid preventable deaths and disability, to limit the severity of injury and the suffering caused by it and to ensure crash survivours best possible recovery and reintegration into society,’’ he said.
Ameachi said there was need to pool all resources together to ensure that all agencies were supported to jointly achieve the goals of the UN Decade of Action on road safety.
Dr Sydney Ibeabusi, National Focal Person of Decade of Action on Road Safety and Injury Prevention, said in Abuja on Monday that this year’s theme was: ‘’Managing Speed.’’
Ibeabusi said that the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety was a global approach involving all segments of the society to reduce the worrisome trend of crashes by 50 per cent by 2020.
He explained that the global idea of road safety week was aimed at bringing burning aspects and interventions on road safety that had been identified to reduce accidents.
He said this year’s focus was on speeding because it had been identified as a causative factor in up to 30 to 50 per cent of road crashes globally.
He said that in Nigeria speeding accounted for 60 per cent of the road accidents.
‘’Nearly 100 per cent pedestrians hit by a car at a collision speed of 20km per hour will survive but only 10 per cent will survive at a collision speed of 100km per hour.
‘’A car traveling at 50km per hour will typically require about 13 metres to stop if maximum break is applied, while a car traveling at 40 km/h will stop in less than 8.5 metres.
‘’Increasing speed from 80km/h can only save 25 minutes in a journey of 100km and this cannot be equated to life.’’
Dr Osagie Ehanire, Minister of State for Transportation, agreed that speeding remained a major cause of accidents on Nigerian roads.
He said that an example of road crash prevention by speed management was reflected on the pilot programme of the integrated National Emergency Medical Response system on the Abuja-Kaduna highway during the six weeks closure of the airport.
He stated that no accident was recorded among the fleet provided by the Federal Government to commute passengers between Abuja and Kaduna.
He said this was because the drivers were compelled to travel at a well-regulated speed of below 120km per hour.
He urged all road users to join in the campaign for speed reduction on the highways.
Dr Boboye Oyeyemi , Corps Marshal ,Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), said the commission introduced the speed limiting device to curb drivers’ reckless driving to save lives on the highways.
Represented by Mr Charles Theophilus, FRSC’s Deputy Corps Marshal, Motor Vehicle Administration, Oyeyemi said that Nigeria with an estimated population of 178.5 million had over 7.6 million cars plying its 204,000-kilometre road network.
He said this statistics showed that there was high pressure on the nation’s roads which made the prevalence of road accidents high.
He reiterated FRSC’s commitment to continue to guarantee safety of road users in the country. (NAN)
TY/ATAB/MOL/AFA
Edited by Mustapha Lamidi/Felix Ajide
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