15 die as truck conveying cows, passengers plung into river

Fifteen persons lost their lives in Adamawa on Sunday when a truck conveying cows and passengers lost control on a bridge and fell into a drying river.

The Adamawa Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr. Adetunji, confirmed the figure to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola on Monday.

Adetunji said that the accident occurred at about 10p.m. on the Ngurore Bridge on Yola-Numan Road.

He said that before the arrival of FRSC personnel at the scene, the victims had been evacuated to the Federal Medical Centre, Yola, and Specialists Hospital, Yola.

Adetunji said that the number of injured persons had yet to be ascertained.

“I received a call at about 22:00hours on Sunday that there was a crash on Ngurore Bridge on Yola-Numan Highway.

“On arrival at the scene, we discovered that it was a truck carrying cows and passengers that lost control and fell into the drying river,” the commander told NAN.

According to him, six dead bodies were deposited at the Federal Medical Centre and nine at the Specialists Hospital.

He advised motorists to shun night driving as well as avoid transporting humans and animals in the same vehicle.

Air Peace aborts Abuja flight due to tyre loss

Air Peace has aborted an Abuja-bound flight after the B737 aircraft with flight number 4P7198 lost one of its tyres as it prepared for take-off at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.

The aircraft was departing for Abuja at 10:40am when the incident happened.

A passenger said everyone disembarked from the aircraft after the incident and the management made plans to put them in another aircraft for the Abuja journey.

The Corporate Communications Manager, Air Peace, Chris Iwarah, who confirmed the incident, said another plane had been provided for the passengers and the tyre of the first plane was being fixed.

 

Yet Again! Multiple accidents recorded on Iyana – Oworo road.

The rate of accidents on Lagos highways appears not to be reducing anytime soon as another auto crash occurred on the usually busy Iyana-Oworo end of the Third Mainland Bridge yesterday, Monday, February 13, 2017.

 

Although no lives were lost during the crash, three salon cars and a Toyota SUV were affected in the incident.

 

The Emergency Response Unit of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, rushed to the scene to tend to victims and also tow affected vehicles off the road to ease traffic flow.

 

See more photos from the accident scene below:

 

 

 

13 killed in multiple accidents in Gombe State.

Thirteen persons, including a two-year old girl, have been reported killed in four motor accidents that occurred on highways in Gombe state between Sunday and Monday.

The Gombe State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, David Mendie, confirmed the accidents to journalists on Tuesday.

He said five persons died instantly on Sunday after a Toyota saloon car in which they were traveling veered into the bush on the Gombe-Kumo road, while two others sustained very serious injuries. He blamed speeding for the accident.

He also said four persons died instantly in another accident which happened on Monday on the same road when a car trying to overtake other vehicles collided with an oncoming trailer.

Mr. Mendie refused to comment on an accident reported in Bara on the Gombe-Bauchi road also on Monday because the area was outside his jurisdiction.

The accident involved a Toyota Homer bus belonging to the Plateau Express Service (Plateau Riders) and a Sharon mini bus.

According to a journalist, Chuwang Dung, who survived the accident, four persons were killed when the Toyota bus they were riding in tried to avoid a stray animal and collided with a Sharon mini bus.

Mr. Dung said the drivers of the two vehicles died instantly, while the two-year old girl and another man died later from their injuries.

The FRSC Sector Commander warned commercial motorists to instal speed limiter device in their vehicles, saying it remains key for safety against crashes on the roads.

He said no driver would be spared the wrath of the law for failing to instal the device as soon as the deadline was over.

North Central records highest road accidents – FRSC

Corps Marshal and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, has said that zone 4 of the corp made up of Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau states has the highest rate of accidents in the country.

 

Oyeyemi, who spoke on Wednesday at the flag off of the sensitisation rally on the speed limiting devices and then 2016 ember months campaign in Jos, said last year the zone recorded 905 accidents, while 279 people died.

 

He, however, added that in 2016, road accidents decreased to 784, but had the highest number of fatalities of 331 deaths.

He said these accidents were largely caused by human error, like speeding and urged motorists to exercise caution while driving in these ember months.

 

Oyeyemi said, “Over time, the corps, through research and statistics has established that speed and speed related offences have been responsible for high percentage of crashes (over 60 per cent)and this prompted the introduction of the speed limiting devices.”

My Life Flashed Before My Eyes – Virgin Airline Owner, Richard Branson Almost Killed in Crash Horror

Multi-billionaire business tycoon and owner of Virgin Airline, Richard Branson, has narrated his near-death experience on a training cycle run with his two grown up children when disaster struck which nearly took his life. Read below;
A couple of nights ago I went cycling on Virgin Gorda with Holly and Sam as part of my training for the Virgin Strive Challenge. I was heading down a hill towards Leverick Bay when it suddenly got really dark and I managed to hit a ‘sleeping policeman’ hump in the road head on. The next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes.
I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact, and I was wearing a helmet that saved my life (however, perhaps they should build bike helmets that protect the side of the face too – does anyone know of one?). My bike went flying off the cliff and disappeared. We’ve since recovered the crumpled bicycle, completely destroyed. My cheek has been badly damaged and my knee, chin, shoulder and body severely cut.
As I landed, once I realised I was alive, I began testing my movement. I really couldn’t believe I was alive, let alone not paralysed. Coincidentally, the first person to arrive on the scene was my assistant Helen, who had just returned from holiday. She was wondering who was lying prostrate on the road. I was so glad to be alive that I quickly was able to summon my sense of humour, and said to her: “I’m alive! At least you’ve still got a job!”
George, one of the team, sprinted from the bottom of the hill and the team soon got me back home and patched up. I travelled to Miami for x-rays and scans, but have been extremely fortunate that apart from a cracked cheek and some torn ligaments I hopefully will be able to complete the Virgin Strive Challenge next month. My biggest hardship is having to drink tea out of a straw. Oh, and being called elephant man by a six year old!
My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward. All you have to do is get back up and try again. At least I’m practicing what I preach – though a little too literally!
The date of the accident just happened to be the fifth anniversary of the fire on Necker Island. What a way to mark it! Thankfully, good fortune has smiled on me so far. It has been quite a year, I’ve been in the wars knocking my teeth out playing tennis not once but twice, and also being kissed by a ray and running into a bullet proof door.
Over the years I’ve had many brushes with death, not least in my ballooning adventures. In the documentary Don’t Look Down, which we’re releasing soon, my co-pilot Per Lindstrand quotes Napoleon: “I know he’s a good general, but is he lucky?” He says I have certainly been lucky – I wouldn’t disagree!
Today my son Sam mentioned another fitting quote, from Hunter S. Thompson: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
Article written by Richard Branson and published on Virgin.com

Girl Plunges Car Into Canal Killing Herself And Her Dad After Mistaking Accelarator For Brakes

A teenage learner driver killed herself and two others after mistaking accelerator for brake and plunging into canal.

The car fell more than 10 feet before it landed upside down in the water – with the force of the impact believed to have knocked all four people on board unconscious.

Locals frantically jumped in and tried to smash the windows and rescue them as they slowly submerged under the water.

According to Daily Mirror ,only one was rescued alive and rushed to hospital where she is in a coma, while the other three tragically died.

Reports said the 19-year-old girl, identified by her surname Wu – only had a learner’s licence and still needed to be accompanied by an adult.

She was reportedly driving her father’s car with her dad, 51, in the passenger seat and her sister, 16, and another friend, 17, in the back as they set off.

But soon after the inexperienced Wu started the engine, she reportedly stepped on the accelerator pedal – thinking it was the brake, causing the vehicle to charge forward and down the embankment of the canal.

All four were unconscious by the time they were pulled from the submerged vehicle, with paramedics pronouncing Wu, her dad, and the friend dead at the scene after unsuccessful attempts to revive them.

The tragic incident occurred in Dongfeng, which is in Zhongshan City in Guangdong Province in southern China.

Motorcyclist Who Broke His Back, Lost His Leg And Arm Becomes A Bodybuilder

A motor cyclist, Jay Vincent, who broke his back, lost his right leg and suffered debilitating injuries to his right arm and shoulder after smashing his 90 mph motorbike into a telegraph pole 7 years ago, has started a successful new career as a bodybuilder.

Jay was just 17 years as at the time of the devastating accident. He spent three weeks in a coma, a further three months in intensive care and left the hospital six months later feeling weak and weighing only seven stone.
Jay vowed to himself to do everything he could to build his strength back up and hit the gym , making up is his mind that not even his condition could stop him.

“When I came out of the coma I was in a bad way” said Jay. “I had a fractured spine, my arm was broken in three places, I had a shattered collarbone, elbow, wrist, and pelvis, and four broken ribs puncturing both lungs.
“My right leg had been torn off above the knee, and I had ripped the nerves out controlling most of my right arm, making it almost useless.
“I felt sickened and didn’t know how I could face life with half of my body missing or not functioning.”
“I was determined to get back on track and to get as fit and as strong as I could. As soon as I got my artificial leg I went back to work as a mechanic and hit the gym.”

 

2 Die As Herdsmen Cause Accident In Ogun State

Two people lost their lives after the car they were traveling in hit cows along the Obada Oko area along the old Lagos-Abeokuta expressway, Abeokuta, Ogun state at about 2am yesterday April 24th. Fulani herdsmen were rearing their cattle along the way, when a few strayed into the road…

According to PM news, the accident occurred after the driver of a green coloured Austin Tipper truck rammed into the cattle, lost control of his vehicle and then crashed inside a bush.

The driver of the truck and his motorboy died instantly while one of the cattle was killed in the accident. The driver of another truck, a wine coloured DAF truck that was coming on top speed, crashed into the bush as it attempted to evade the scene of the crash. The driver however escaped unhurt. The remains of the deceased persons have been deposited at the morgue at Ifo General Hospital.

Did Angels Do This? 18-Month Old Rescued From Crashed Car That Killed Her Mother After 4 Police Officers Heard Mysterious Voice Calling For Help

This baby was saved from drowning by a mysterious voice. Four police officers said they heard a mysterious adult voice calling for help from a scene of a car crash in northern Utah. When they rushed there to help, they only found 18-month-old Lily alive. Her 25-year-old mother had died in the crash. The police said they could have sworn they heard an adult female voice calling to them for help…but only met Lily trapped in the car but alive in the icy river. The mother was long dead. Read full storybelow… From UK Daily Mail
At 10 o’clock on a Friday night in March last year Jennifer Groesbeck veered off a road in northern Utah as she drove back from dinner at her father’s home and hurtled into the icy waters of the Spanish Fork river.
What caused her to swerve remains a mystery but, unluckily, the front wheel of her car caught the edge of the bridge’s concrete wall, causing the vehicle to flip over it and crash down into the river. It landed upside down in the shallows with such force that the windscreen was blown out and the roof crushed as if it had been cardboard.
Out of sight from the road, the red Dodge hatchback sat in chest-high foaming water for 14 hours until it was spotted by an angler, who reported seeing a hand dangling out of a broken window.
Four local police officers arrived first, their sense of urgency captured by the body camera one of them had switched on and whose footage has since been watched thousands of times on the internet.
They dash into the water – so cold that a total of seven policemen and firemen were later treated for hypothermia – and desperately try to get inside the crushed vehicle. Then, about two minutes into the body camera footage, its microphone picks up the faint sound of an adult voice, sounding urgent. It is unintelligible on the footage but appears to be a plea for help as Officer Jared Warner responds: ‘We’re helping, we’re coming.’
Something very odd had just happened, although the emergency responders weren’t to realise it at the time. With visibly new urgency, the rescuers turned the waterlogged car on to its side and discovered the 25-year-old driver was long dead.

 

But there was a baby in the back seat, Mrs Groesbeck’s 18-month-old daughter, Lily. Upside down and strapped into a child seat that had kept her out of the water and – crucially – kept her clothes dry, she had remained there for an age, her face suspended just above the churning river.
Unconscious and suffering from hypothermia, Lily was successfully revived at hospital.
Her miraculous survival made headlines around the world, and it wasn’t until later that the four policemen discussed those frantic minutes and realised there was something very puzzling about them.
If the mother had died in the initial impact of the crash and the baby was unconscious, whose was the female voice they each swore they had heard coming from the car?
One of those policemen, Tyler Beddoes, believes he knows the answer: Lily was saved by a heavenly guardian who had comforted her during that bleak, freezing night in the half-submerged car and then called for help as her life hung in the balance.
In a new book, Proof Of Angels, Beddoes – an officer with ten years’ experience – describes how the rescue has solidified a religious faith he previously hadn’t really felt.
One doesn’t have to be a sceptical atheist to wonder whether someone might be trying to find a religious message here that isn’t warranted. Beddoes is a Mormon, a religion that believes we all have a guardian angel.
The Lily Groesbeck case, nevertheless, defies any easy explanation. One impressionable or superstitious officer could decide to believe he heard a mysterious voice. But four witnesses are harder to dismiss, especially with video footage capturing a muffled voice and the officer’s response to it.
Quizzed later, each of the rescuers concurred in what they had heard.

 

Officer Bryan Dewitt said: ‘We were down on the car and a distinct voice says: ‘Help me, help me.’ ‘
Jared Warner, the policeman who was in the video saying they were doing their best, said a few days later: ‘All four of us can swear that we heard somebody inside the car saying ‘Help’.’
‘I think it pushed us to go harder a little longer. I don’t think that any one of us had intended on flipping a car over that day.’
Beddoes soon became the spokesman for the four, as his colleagues grew wary of being labelled as naive – or mad.
Culled from UK Daily Mail

Woman Survives Car Crash But Is Killed Minutes Later While Going To Take Her Purse From The Wreckage

A 25-year-old mother-of-one who survived a car crash on Sunday morning has died after going back to the vehicle to grab her purse, police claim.

Brittany Leith, mother of a three-year-old girl, was left completely uninjured when her Nissan hit the center median and flipped over onto its roof on Long Island’s Southern State Parkway at 3.54am.
However, after clambering out of the wreckage through a cracked window and being helped to the roadside by other drivers, Leith went back to her car to collect her belongings.
But before cops arrived,she returned to her vehicle in the left lane to retrieve property from it, as she walked back, she was hit and instantly killed by another car on the highway.
 
A state police car then arrived and was also struck from behind by another passing motorist. A state trooper was taken to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries.
Her 73-year-old grandmother Claire Hansen said she doesn’t know how they will break the news to Leith’s daughter.
‘We have to tell this little baby, this little doll,’ Hansen said. ‘How do we tell this little girl? . . . She keeps saying, “Where’s Mommy? Where’s Mommy?” It’s not supposed to happen this way.’
According to State Police Senior Investigator Thomas Hughes, Leith was adamant that she had to collect her belongings despite warnings from other motorists.
Source: NY Post

Akpabio’s Vehicle Collided With Ours – US Embassy

The United States Embassy has confirmed that the convoy of former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, collided with a suburban jeep belonging to the mission on Monday.

The Senior Information Specialist in the embassy, Sani Mohammed, said local authorities had commenced investigation into the accident.

When asked about the condition of the driver and the vehicle involved in the crash, Mohammed said he did not know.

He said, “A US embassy vehicle was involved in the accident. We are staying in touch with local authorities who are investigating, but I don’t know the condition of the driver and the vehicle.”

But the Head, Media Relations and Strategy, Federal Road Safety Corps, Bisi Kazeem, said seven adult males were involved in the crash, adding that three of them including Akpabio sustained injuries and were taken to the hospital.

“A suburban jeep and a Mercedes Benz SUV were involved in the accident; the suburban was towed to the embassy while the Benz SUV was towed to the Central Police Station. Our accident investigation team has already commenced investigation, so it is too early to know the cause of the accident,” he said.

Akpabio, who is currently the Minority Leader of the Senate, was involved in a car accident in the early hours of Monday on his way to the airport to catch an international flight.

One of our correspondents learnt that his car ran into a convoy of some US embassy officials while trying to beat the traffic light.

An officer of the FRSC, who craved anonymity, told one of our correspondents that the occupants of the vehicles in the convoy of the US embassy and Akpabio’s driver did not sustain any injury but that the senator suffered some injuries in the chest region.

The FRSC officer, who was at the scene of the accident which occurred around 7.25am near the Bolingo Hotel, along Abuja Airport Road, in the Central Business District of the FCT, stated that Akpabio was immediately rushed to the National Hospital for an intensive care.

One of the senator’s aides, who was sighted at the National Hospital on Monday, told one of our correspondents that Akpabio was travelling outside the country to visit his wife and children when the accident happened.

The Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Biodun Olujimi, who was one of the early callers at the hospital, explained that medical personnel at the hospital told her that the Akwa-Ibom North-West senator was in a stable condition.

Also, the current Governor of Akwa -Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, who was sighted at the hospital, did not speak with journalists when he got there around 12.10pm.

The Chief Information Officer of the National Hospital, Hajia Rabiah Labaran, told journalists that Akpabio was brought to the hospital by some FRSC officers who rescued him from the scene of the accident.

Labaran said, “He (Akpabio) was brought in this morning after he had a car crash as I learnt. He was brought in from the Bolingo Hotel junction, where a vehicle crashed into his own vehicle from behind.

“When they brought him we conducted a check on him and the result showed that he did not have any serious injury. He was talking when he was brought in and they gave him necessary attention at the trauma unit.

“I learnt that as of this afternoon (12:30pm), he was taken to the private wing of the hospital for proper care but there was no serious injury.

“It is something he can come over in a few days. He is currently recuperating,” she added.

A source, however, told one of our correspondents last night that Akpabio had been discharged from the hospital. The source, who is one of the aides of the senator, said he was discharged from the hospital around 4pm after the doctors had certified him fit to continue treatment after the necessary prescriptions.

But Labaran declined further comments on Akpabio’s treatment when contacted last night.

Road Accidents in Nigeria, Analysis And Discussion By Adeyemi Adedokun

Figure1: Infographic of RTA Nigeria, 2013
This infographic visualizes the key areas in the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) annual report for 2013 (available here). In this article, we shall be discussing these key areas, shedding more light on their significance. Please note that there are some more important items in the report that could not be included in this chart but would be referred in the article.
The total population used in this report is believed to be 160 million people (as stated in the OECD/ITF report), total road length of 194 thousand kilometres (as cited by Vitus N. Nkoji), and total vehicle population of 10 million vehicles (as cited by FRSC Vehicle Inspection and Certification Head). This translates to 825 persons per km of road. According to World Bank ranking of number of vehicles per 1000 inhabitant in 2007, Nigeria ranked 143 with 31cars per 1000 inhabitant. This is 2015 and this figure is yet to be updated. Imagine what the ranking would be with adequate data.
More vehicles on the road usually lead to more road accident as the risk of accident is increased with exposure. The impact of exposure on traffic safety is well reflected in the number of deaths and injury recorded on Nigerian roads.
6450 Nigerians lost their lives on our roads in 2013, which includes 4552 men, 1398 women, 299 boys and 201 girls. The report shows that men are almost four times more involved in road accident death. More data from the report content shows that between 2009 and 2013, 30435 people were killed in road accident in Nigeria (This is about the size of a European city, e.g. Gyula, Hungary). Also, 28480 men, 9198 women, 1520 boys and 859 girls, a total of 40057 people were injured in road accidents in 2013. Looking through the years, the report shows that 183531 people were injured in road accidents between 2009 and 2013, and the extent of their injury is unknown.
The numbers support the report that Nigeria is ranked second-highest in the rate of road accidents among 193 countries of the world. A report from WHO adjudged Nigeria the most dangerous country in Africa with 33.7 deaths per 100,000 population every year. According to the report, one in every four road accident deaths in Africa occurs in Nigeria. A conclusion drawn by Nigeria watch states that next to Boko Haram insurgency, road accident is the second highest source of violent death in Nigeria.

Discussion
‘You cannot control/develop what you cannot measure’, Tom DeMarco. This we believe, is the major reason why road accidents among other things in Nigeria remains consistently high, despite several intervention from agencies such as the World Bank and other organisations.
Every standard report starts out with an official national population statistics, with which the number of fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants is calculated. There seem to be several figures from different sources, which is perhaps why the FRSC decided to be silent on this one. The effect of this is seen in the report from the WHO, which concluded that Nigeria records 33.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitant. This is ridiculously high by global standard and totally untrue according to the report from the FRSC, but no one has until now, publicly challenge this report and this is unfortunately the information available to the world on Wikipedia. The Nigerian population according to data from World Bank was 159.7 million in 2010. 6052 fatalities were recorded in 2013 according to the FRSC report. Using the formula from Indiana State in the US, this gives approximately 3.8 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitant. Fatality is a term for people killed in road accident either immediately or within 30 days from the day of crash. This is still relatively high in an environment where most accidents and fatalities are underreported. The report has no information about the total road length in the country or total vehicle population for adequate measurement and calculations, all which had to be sourced from different papers and reports.
70.6% of the total number of people killed in road accident in 2013 are men. These are fathers, uncles, brothers, sons, and friends to people. A report from WHO concluded that 3 out of every 4 road deaths are among men. We are losing are men! Children are also not excluded from this violent death, as a report from the FRSC stated that 1903 children were killed and 8667 children were injured in road traffic accidents between 2010 and 2014.
Underreporting of road accident is a global problem, but this problem is more amplified in Nigeria where little or no data is readily or easily available. The information available in this report seems to have recorded only road accidents on the highway and inter-city routes. Some routes were identified in the report published by OECD as black, due to high number of recorded accidents. But what about accidents on routes within the state? Like Ikorodu road in Lagos, Lugbe road in Abuja, intersections in Kaduna, Wamba road in Nasarawa, bridge in Anambra, and so on within the states where accidents are known to be frequent? Declaring these routes as black is not a public knowledge as the information is not available to the road users. Warning the public with data yields better result while treatment is being applied for correction.
The accident severity index in Yobe is proof that commercial vehicles constitutes the highest number of accidents and records the highest number of deaths with 55.8% of the total recorded cases. The severity index means that in Yobe, every 10 road accident gets 19.30 killed. There is an urgent need for an intervention in the public transport system in Nigeria, as this system is largely dominated by associations and communities of people with very little or no safety education. No wonder why the first property every Nigerian longs to acquire is a car. Private vehicles constituted (42.5%), Government vehicles (1.6%) and Diplomat vehicles (0.1%).
Speed violation is reported as the major cause of fatal accidents, with 32% of total cases reported. But this offence that has claimed and is still claiming several lives is only a 3 points offence in the FRSC traffic offence and penalties, with a fine of NGN 3,000 only. The Lagos State government however seem to understand the effect of this matter and has placed a fine of NGN 50,000 only on the same offence. Alcohol, which is known as a top accident cause globally, and readily available at almost every motor park across the country (in different forms like ‘shepe or paraga’, local herbs soaked in dry gin), is reported by the FRSC to constitute only 1% of the total accidents in the OECD report. This is clearly a case of lack of measurement. Nigeria by law allows BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) level of up to 0.5g/l, but anything above that becomes Driving under Influence offence (DUI), which is a 5points offence with a fine of NGN 5,000 only. According to International Centre for Alcohol Policies (ICAP), BAC level between 0.2–0.9 mg/ml for a typical person could cause mood changes, acting inappropriately, impaired coordination, slowed reaction time and diminished response to pain. Even distracted driving records only 0.4% of the total accidents reported, in a country that constituted 76% of mobile internet share of web traffic in January 2015? Loss of Control caused 17.1%, Dangerous driving caused 12.1% and Fatigue caused 2% of fatal road accidents reported.
Nigeria is Africa’s fastest growing economy. This also means that our traffic and transportation problems are growing at a steady rate, and requires all the help it can get. The FRSC is doing a decent job to the best of their ability, just that their best might not be sufficient for the growing road safety needs. FRSC members need more training and capacity to meet the demand of enforcing the law. Other law enforcement agencies at both state and federal level also need to trained and synergize with the FRSC.
We have to set a national goal for our road transportation and safety, and also develop a national policy to drive the goal. In 1997, Sweden set a goal called ‘Vision Zero’ that aims to achieve zero road accident death and fatal injury on Swedish roads. The result of this vision has inspired several countries around the world to adopt the goal and also to develop individual national policy.
Nigeria needs a national policy for road safety that will protect our children who are the future of the nation and other vulnerable road users like pedestrians and old people from being violently killed and injured in road accidents, a policy that will ensure that vehicles that are not road-worthy are kept off our roads, a policy that will ensure the development of transportation and road safety research, a policy that will ensure that road safety education is part of our educational curriculum, a policy that will ensure that road safety platform is not used to extort the people but to educate, serve and prevent road accidents occurrence, and a policy that will make road safety and transportation data available to the public.
Our prayer is, very soon Boko Haram and terrorism will be completely defeated. But if we fail to attend to safety needs on our roads, uncountable number of Nigerians will continue to die and severely injured daily for reasons that could be measured and controlled. This could be you or me.

Adeyemi Adedokun is an Intelligent Transport researcher at Linköping University, Sweden. He is the founder of Accidentdata Nigeria, a road safety campaign initiative that aims to use crowdsourced information to build a public accident database and provide road safety education to Nigerians. He can be reached on +46729037809, accidentdatanigeria@gmail.com and tweets @accidentdatang

Views expressed are solely that of author and does not represent views of www.omojuwa.com nor its associates

Aftermath Of School Closure: Several UNN Students Feared Dead In Auto Crash

The sudden closure of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, claimed first casualties Tuesday evening as several students of the institution lost their lives in a multiple road accident.

It was gathered that the students, who were traveling home after the University authorities ordered them out of hostels, met their untimely death at the Nsukka-9th Mile Express way. Although the Enugu State Police Command put the death figure at three, an eyewitness account said the number was higher.

In a statement by the spokesman of the Enugu State Police Command, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, DSP, he said “three persons have been confirmed dead while five others sustained various degrees of injuries”.