Round-up Nigeria: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 – On auto-crashes on our highways
The spate of road accidents in Nigeria is worrisome. From township roads to intercity highways, the nation continues to lose lives and limbs to these auto-crashes.
Citizens always blame government for bad roads. That is understandable. But the problem is, accidents even tend to occur more on good roads. This is why some people have opined, even if sarcastically, that Nigerians are not set for totally good roads.
Today, in a journey that was less than 3km, we reported an accident that put the live of an elderly man in serious danger. The family is definitely in a sorrowful mood now. While we acknowledge that auto-crashes are not limited to this clime, the fatalities recorded here are frightening.
Jarushub editorial team think that in addition to providing good roads, our governments should instill sanity on the highways through various measures like speed regulation, reckless pedestrian crossing and so on.
The rescue response of the Lekki Concession Company (LCC), the operator of that road under PPP arrangement, was also unimpressive. It doesn’t speak well that despite its resources from daily takings on the highway, it would take 30 minutes to arrive at an accident spot that occurred less than 500 metres away from one of its toll plazas. We call on authorities of LCC to work on this. Otherwise they will continue to validate the impression that they are concerned only about their tolling revenue.
Dear writer, I still strongly object d notion that “accidents occur more on smooth,good roads” nor share wat ever sarcasm come thereafter. It’s high time we realized dt a “good road” as it was called, is NOT only the one with long levelled stretch of bitumen/asphalt!Rather, a “safe road”, which is usually generally meant by “good road” is the one in which, prior to just being levelled with asphalt, was safely designed for safety of the users. In other words, such safe road will be disgned to be wide enough as per intl standards, provided with culverts/kerbs, road markers,safety signs, speed limit, etc. For instance, as per design, a highway that surrounds a school/market place MUST be provided with reflective speed bumps of a specific height, Highways along major places,offices, banks,etc should have a spare emergency lane, (if applicable) or at least, emegency vehicle be parked within close proximity. The list goes on. In short, Our attitudes/technical knowledge abt to rd safety is to required-both govt nd masses to reduce rd accidents. To average ngrn, any road “painted black”, (i.e with laid asphalt) is just enough, perhaps dats y Govt. provides only just dat!
Rufai