New data on road crashes from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics has shown that 1,200 people died in road traffic accidents in the third quarter of 2020 alone.
The NBS in data released on Thursday revealed that most of the accidents were caused speed violation.
Following closely in causing most crashes is unlawful overtaking.
The NBS in its Executive Summary said:
“The Q3 2020 road transport data reflected that 3,066 road crashes occurred in Q3 2020. Speed violation is reported as the major cause of road crashes in Q3 2020 and it accounted for 57.26% of the total road crashes reported, Wrongful overtaking followed closely as it accounted for 7.11% of the total road crashes recorded while Dangerous Overtaking recorded the least of the total road crashes reported.
“Similarly, a total of 1,236 Nigerians got killed in the road traffic crashes recorded in Q3 2020. Out of the total Nigerians that got killed, 1,176 are adults representing 95% of the figure while the remaining 60 Nigerians are children representing 5%. 976 male Nigerians, representing 79%, got killed in road crashes in Q3 2020 while 200 female Nigerians, representing 16% got killed.
“A total of 4,893 vehicles were involved in road traffic crashes in Q3 2020. Car is reported to be the major type of vehicle involved in road crashes and it accounted for 30.30% of the vehicles involved in road crashes reported followed by Motorcycle and Minibus as they both accounted for 22.60% and 15.50% respectively.
“Data on the category of vehicles involved in road crashes in Q3 2020 reflected that 61% of vehicles are commercial (2,987), 37.80% are private (1,849) and 1.10% are government with 56 vehicles involved.”
Road traffic accidents is the leading cause of death in Nigeria in 2020, killing more people than any disease faced by the country.
