Eniola Olayemi
Edo Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says no fewer than 20 persons lost their lives in eight crashes that occurred in the state between December 2018 and January 2019.
The State Sector Commander of the Corps, Mr Anthony Oko, made this known in an interview with the reporters in Benin on Saturday.
Oko said that the crashes occurred between December 2018 and January 2019 when the “Operation Zero Tolerance’’ of the corps lasted.
He said that the figure recorded was against the 21 recorded during the same period in 2017/2018 which indicated a 4.76 per cent decline.
Oko said that there were a total of 37 reported Road Traffic Crashes (RTCs) in 2018/2019 period under review, same as 37 reported in the same period in 2017/2018.
He however, said that fatality reduced from 13 in 2017/2018 to eight in 2018/2019 indicating a decline of 38.46 per cent.
Oko also said that within the periods under review, whereas 200 were injured in 2017/2018, only 167 persons were reportedly injured in 2018/2019.
He also said 21 and 25 persons respectively had serious injuries in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 respectively.
The sector commander further said that the total number of victims involved in the RTCs within the periods were 401 in 2017/2018 and 391 in 2018/2019.
He explained that from the figures above, it was observable that in some cases, the command recorded a decline while in others, there was a slight increase but not significant generally.
The sector commander noted that the command also discovered that the causal factors of RTCs within the periods under review indicated that Speed Violation (SPV) with 22 and 26 cases in the periods being compared respectively was first, while in the second position was TBT with Four and five respectively.
“However Break Failure (BFL) made the first three in causal factors.
“Meanwhile, in 2018/2019, SPV increased by 18.18 per cent as a causal factor.
“Similarly most prevalence of RTCs, 16 in 2018/2019 and 12 in 2017/2018, occurred along Benin-Ore route followed by Benin-Agbor route five in 2018/2019 and four in 2017/2018.
“Third place was Agbor-Benin route with five in 2018/2019 and three in 2017/2018 respectively,” he said.
According to Oko, of the 37 crash cases recorded in both periods, those routes accounted for 25 in 2018/2019 and 20 in 2017/2018, which represents 67.57 per cent and 54.05 per cent of the cases respectively.
“Similarly in terms of casualties killed and injured, 78 was recorded on Benin-Ore route alone accounting for 42 per cent of the total cases,’’ he said.
He however said that though it appeared that no significant drop was noticed in the crash reduction effort during the periods, it was worthy to observe that it is work in progress.
“This is because the new administration is poised to deliver on its mandate of reducing crashes and entrenching safe motoring culture in the state, ‘’ Oko said.
