An Infrastructure Engineer and Road Safety expert, Dr. Olukayode Ibijola has said that 62% of road accidents are caused by disobedience to safety rules and road construction designs which mislead commuters, resulting in human errors and fatality.
Delivering a paper titled Road Safety Challenges in Nigeria at the Ado Ekiti branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Dr. Ibijola said although not all road accidents in Nigeria were not reported and recorded, no fewer than 28,195 people were killed in road accidents between 2013 and 2019.
Ibijola who trained in Transportation Engineering and Road Safety identified road designs, road marks and signs, road audit, and poor traffic control among others as reasons for deaths on the Nigerian highways.
The road safety expert stated that many highway and pavement engineers to produce “unsafe and unforgiving roads” because of their inadequate knowledge of road safety as it applies to road design.
Ibijola who lamented that many Nigerian roads are not marked or poorly marked while some road markings are faded and these make the drivers disobey the marking rules, leading to lane indiscipline said many drivers become reckless and ignore speed limits warnings when the roads are good.
“Road audit is an act of auditing the road design and the road after construction in order to make necessary corrections if need be. This is to enhance safety of the road users before opening the road to public use. Road safety audit is very important and it is a global practice to audit road design as well as constructed road. It is not impressive that despite the activity of accident, a deadly disease in Nigeria, the country does not have a road safety audit manual neither do we practice road audit on any Nigerian road before and after construction”, he said.
Ibijola who currently works for Ekiti State government stressed that a holistic approach through engineering, education, enforcement, emergency management, encouragement, engagement and continuous evaluation would enhance a safe system whereby the road, vehicle and road users will be safe.
He advocated the introduction of Road Safety Engineering to Nigeria’s education system, especially Civil Engineering curriculum while research on road safety should be encouraged with adequate funding.
“Education, campaign and sensitization programmes should be used to educate the drivers on the need to maintain vehicles. Do the required checks like brake oil, radiator water, spare tyre, wipers etc. All vehicles in the country should be made to undergo periodic vehicle inspection to determine the suitability of operation on Nigerian roads. The government should be enlightened on the importance of vehicle inspection rather than mere revenue generation”, Ibijola advised.
The lecture was attended by road safety enforcement agencies in the State as well as Engineers in both public and private sectors.