Boboye Oyeyemi, corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC says Nigerian Economy loses about N3Billion to Road Traffic Crashes (RTC) annually, as he says that 38% of all African road traffic deaths occur among
pedestrians.
According to the corps Marshal, these crashes decrease air quality owing to exhaust fumes, increases urban noise pollution that causes exhaustion among other health implications.
In a paper presentation in Dakar, Senegal on Non-Motorized Transportation (NMT) during the General Assembly of the West African Road Safety Organization (WARSO), he said Traffic Congestions throw away about 3% of GDP of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to which Nigeria belongs.
Oyeyemi said the Corps has put in result yielding initiatives in place to promote NMT in Nigeria and the African sub-region. The initiatives are; Established National Stakeholders Committee on Bicycle Transportation, Designed the first ever, National Cycling Policy and Strategy in Nigeria and Presently working on the pedestrian manual.
“More so, the Corps understudied 6 cities in 5 different countries with a view to domesticating best practices, established a non-motorised transportation unit to galvanise initiatives and to institutionalize them, Hosted Annual National Bicycle Week and won the 2013 Best Cycling Campaign award globally among 28 other participating countries”.
“Others are: Hosting of the United Nations annual World Bicycle Day (3rd June) on 4th and 5th June this year with cycling rallies in over 200 cities, Training officers of the Corps in Netherlands and in Nigeria through the Netherlands Fellowship, Promoting school cycling and competitions among students to enhance awareness, Mobilisation of the mass media to propagate cycling among others”, he added.
The FRSC boss advised that bicycle lanes should be included on all urban roads in Nigerian cities, Trending down of urban motor vehicle speed to improve safety, Provision of bicycle parking facilities in every public premises and encourage their constituencies to ride bicycles.
According to him, half of the world’s road traffic deaths occur among Motorcyclists (23%), Pedestrians (22%), Cyclists (5%), 31% of deaths among Car occupants and the remaining 19% among unspecified road users.
“84% of the roads inlow-income and middle-income countries where pedestrians are present carry traffic at 40 km/h and above and have no footpaths, however, where the footpaths exist, there is the concern of encroachment, truncation, abuse/misuse by motorist and lack of protective features that totally segregate pedestrians and prevent its usage by other road users”.
