The Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, has stated that the nation’s economy loses about ₦3 billion to road traffic crashes annually.
The loss, he said, was through decreased air quality owing to exhaust fumes, increased urban noise pollution that causes exhaustion among other health implications, including an increase in carbon footprint.
The FRSC Education Officer, Bisi Kazeem, in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that Oyeyemi disclosed these in a presentation in Dakar, Senegal on Non-Motorised Transportation during the General Assembly of the West African Road Safety Organisation.
Oyeyemi stated that three per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is lost to gridlock.
According to him, 38 per cent of all road traffic deaths occur among pedestrians in Africa, noting that half of the world’s road traffic deaths occur among motorcyclists (23 per cent), pedestrians (22 per cent), cyclists (five per cent), and 31 per cent among car occupants and the remaining 19 per cent among unspecified road users.
Oyeyemi pointed out that 84 per cent of the roads in low-income and middle-income countries, where pedestrians were present, carried traffic at 40 km/h and above and had no footpaths.
He explained that pedestrians had a 90 per cent chance of surviving car crashes at 30 km/h or below, but less than a 50 per cent chance of surviving impacts at 45 km/h or above.