How road accidents took a toll on Nigerians, GDP in Q2 2018

Credit: NBS, Infoprations Analysis 2018

The National Bureau of Statistics’ Q2 2018 Road Transport Report reveals that 2,608 road crashes occurred within the quarter under review. Speed violation is reported as the major cause of road crashes in Q2 and it accounted for 50.65% of the total road crashes reported. Tyre burst and dangerous driving followed closely as they both accounted for 8.59% and 8.40% of the total road crashes recorded.

“A total of 8,437 Nigerians got injured in the road traffic crashes recorded. 7,946 of the 8,437 Nigerians that got injured, representing 94% of the figure, are adults while the remaining 491 Nigerians, representing 6% of the figure are children. 6,415 male Nigerians, representing 76%, got injured in road crashes in Q2 while 2,022 female Nigerians, representing 24% got injured.
Similarly, a total of 1,331 Nigerians got killed in the road traffic crashes recorded in Q2 2018. 1,257 of the 1,331 Nigerians that got killed, representing 94% of the figure, are adults while the remaining 74 Nigerians, representing 6% of the figure are children. 1,047 male Nigerians, representing 79%, got killed in road crashes in Q2 while 284 female Nigerians, representing 21% got killed.”

The report further indicates that commercial vehicles involved in crashes than private and government vehicles during the period. Over 60% of the total 4,059 vehicles involved were commercial ones followed by the private vehicles with 38.63%.  

Credit: NBS, Infoprations Analysis 2018

Examining the impact from the economic perspective, Infoprations’ analysis indicates that the crashes reduced the share or contribution of 19 sectors to the GDP by 9.3%. If the crash trends continue, Infoprations expects the reduction to be 1.3% in Q3 2018.

The result of the current analysis aligns with the earlier report by the World Bank that “deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes affect medium- and long-term growth prospects by removing prime age adults from the work force, and reducing productivity due to the burden of injuries.”

Infoprations’ analysis suggests that government and other concerned stakeholders in road transport and safety need to pay specific attention to total cases and casualty of road traffic crashes by reducing the cases and casualty through innovative policies and programmes. This is imperative if Nigeria really wants to halve the number of deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030.