A Survey of Road Traffic Accidents Causes and Consequences in Yobe State Nigeria

Abstract

Road accidents have become a major concern in relation with global public health issues. Road accident
can be defined as colliding of a road vehicle with something such as vehicles, pedestrians, animals, road
debris or other geographical and architectural obstacles. In 2018 the global status report on road safety also
projects road traffic injuries to rank seventh in the global causes of death by 2030. African continent was
not exempted from this global road safety crisis because Africa accounts 16% of global road fatalities,
despite having only about 2% of the world’s vehicles. Road crashes are identified as one of
the leading causes of death in Nigeria, especially among age groups 5 to 29. (NBS, 2020). According to the
Dennis Amata reported in 17th January, 2022, road accident in Nigeria claims 41,709 lives in 8 years.
Similarly, in eighteen months covering Q4 2020 and Q1 2022 where a total of 24,992 road crashes were
recorded across the country, 9,857 persons were confirmed dead by Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC)
from the 67,926 casualties recorded. In total, 129,252 persons were involved in the crashes nationwide.
Therefore, the researcher need to determine the causes of road accident in Yobe state, consequences
happened as a results of road accident in Yobe state and find out how this causes and consequences of road
accident can be minimize. The researcher has design the research work were quantitative analysis will be
apply. The research work will also consider primary data. Five motorist motor parks was selected
respectively. The total population of this five motor parks drivers are three hundred (300) people and the
number of questionnaires distributed among these people are 175 questionnaires. 150 were able to return
from the respondents and all the fifteen questions inside the questionnaires were answered. From the
surveyed conducted on the causes of road accident and consequences in Yobe state in seven major motor
parks in the state, majority of the accidents happened as a result of driver high speed, road conditions, driven
age (21-24), pedestrian behavior when crossing the road, driver education status, driver experience and
trucks driven which carries no any sign of alert on their vehicle while on the road. The researcher
recommended that high speed limitation and severe verdicts on violation of the law, improve road
conditions in the state, training and orientation to drivers on the road rules and regulation, change the
pedestrians’ behavior toward the use of road and re-enforced all roads agencies to do their work.