An expert on road safety issues, Mr. Adenusi Patrick, has expressed his reservation over the implementation on speed limiters on Nigerian roads by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC). Patrick made this position known at the monthly Auto Journalists Association (NAJA) forum held in Lagos, in which he was one of the two speakers. According to him, the country is not ripe for the forceful implementation of the speed limiter on commercial vehicles by the FRSC because most Nigerian roads of bereft of signs to guide drivers. He also stated that the implementation of the speed limiter will also expose motorists and their passengers to harm in case of encounters with harm bandits on the roads. He reasoned that speed was not necessarily the major cause of accidents on Nigerian roads, identifying fatigue as the number one cause of Road Traffic Crashes (RTC) on the roads. Similarly, the road safety enthusiast opined that about 100 persons lose their lives as a result of road traffic crashes on Nigerian roads, which brings the total to over 36,000 deaths every year. This is contrary to the varying monthly figures of between 13 and 20 lives lost to road traffic crashes being disclosed by the FRSC. This is even as he noted that most accidents that occur at nights are not reported most times. Patrick, a safety advocate and one of the lead gladiators of Safety Beyond Borders; a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) said “Over 100 die as a result of road accident in Nigeria daily. You would recall that 17 years ago, we were told that 65 people were killed daily. The question is what has changed? He lamented that over the years, both the Nigeria Police and the FRSC have not been able to work together on generating accurate and uniform, but reasonably acceptable data on number of road users that loses their lives. He however called on corporate organisations in Nigeria to support the on-going effort by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) to curtail road accidents across the country. ]]>
