NBS: Road Accidents Claimed 1,331 Nigerians in Q2

James Emejo in Abuja

The total number of human lives lost to road accidents stood at 1,331 in the second quarter of the year (Q2), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has stated.

According to the Q2 2018 Road Transport Data posted on the agency’s website Tuesday, road crashes in the period under review totaled 2,608.

Abuja recorded 289 cases of road crashes which claimed 66 lives. 187 of the accidents were linked to speed violation.

Lagos State recorded 89 cases with 30 deaths.

Speed violation was identified as the major cause of road crashes in Q2 and accounted for 50.65 percent of the total road crashes reported.

According to the report, tyre burst and dangerous driving followed closely as they both accounted for 8.59 percent and 8.40 percent of the total road accidents recorded.

A total of 8,437 Nigerians got injured in road traffic mishap recorded – 7,946 of them representing 94 percent are adults while the remaining 491 representing 6 percent of the figure are children.

The NBS noted that 6,415 male Nigerians, representing 76 percent, got injured in road crashes in Q2 while 2,022 female Nigerians, representing 24 percent got injured.

It added that of the total lives lost, 1,257, representing 94 percent of the figure are adults while the remaining 74 Nigerians, representing 6 percent are children.

It further explained that 1,047 male Nigerians, representing 79 percent got killed in road crashes in Q2 while 284 female Nigerians, representing 21 percent lost their lives.

Furthermore, the estimated vehicle population in the country stood at 11,760,871 with the total estimated population put at 198,000,000 in 2018.

Nigeria’s vehicle per population ratio stood at 0.06.

Data on the category of vehicles involved in road crashes in Q2 reflected that 60.29 percent of vehicles are commercial (2,447), 38.63 percent are private (1,568), 1.08 percent are government (44) while the diplomat had no involvement.

It said there are 6,785,956 commercial, 4,819,251 private, 149, 470 government and 6,194 diplomatic vehicles in the review period.

The NBS further explained that a total of 221,878 national drivers licences were produced in Q2 with Lagos and FCT producing the highest number of drivers’ licences while Zamfara and Taraba States produced the least numbers of national drivers’ license.