Road rage: 342 accidents claim 22 lives in Lagos in first two months of 2014
Many Nigerians are made to believe that more road accidents are recorded in the last quarter of every year. This has spread so deep as an urban legend that it even made it into a song with a fancy sobriquet “ember months,” denoting a season of accidents. But this is not true for Lagos after a review of accident data over a two-year period between 2022 and the first half of 2024.
The Record looked into the data of road accidents across Lagos to find out common causes and how they might be avoided. After poring through a web of news reports of road accidents in the city, it came to light that not only have these accidents resulted in avoidable deaths, major causes include speed limit violations, under-age driving and drunk-driving.
Sources also posited that the high rate of accidents may be linked to ongoing road construction and infrastructure projects across the state.
More accidents in Q1 2024
From the news reported alone in 2024, a total of 342 road accidents were recorded, which claimed 22 lives in Lagos between January and February 2024.
According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, Lagos witnessed a total of 458 road accidents involving 2289 people, which claimed 873 casualties, who are either dead or injured. That means that more than one third of every accident victim in Lagos is either dead or ends up in a hospital with various degrees of injury.
The 2023 figures are an improvement from the data for 2022 where the State recorded 780 road accidents involving 3352 people with 1133 casualties.
Interestingly, the total cases reported for the first two months of the first quarter of 2024 surpasses the 2022 and 2023 figures, which is rather alarming.
When broken into quarters, the data for the last two years provides even more insights. While Nigerians believe that the ember months are dreadful and known to claim lives and blood via road accidents, the quarter was major festive events that do not warrant long breaks like the Christmas and New Year Break are likely to give rise to more road accidents as it has been observed in the 2022 and 2023 data.
In 2023, the highest accident cases were recorded in the second quarter of the year. In this period, there were 138 road accidents recorded, involving 689 people. In the first quarter of 2023, during which time the 2023 general elections took place in Nigeria, Lagos recorded the most casualties from accidents at 270 persons.
When the 2022 data was reviewed, the highest number of road crashes occurred in the third quarter in which Eid-UL-Kabir also known as Ileya was celebrated by the Muslims with 267 cases. The first quarter of 2022, however, saw the highest number of people involved in accidents at 1118 people. There were 324 casualties in the same quarter.
Causes of road accidents
The Record found that 52% of the road accidents in 2023 were caused by speed limit violations.
This was reiterated by the Lagos State Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Babatunde Farinloye, who confirmed that speed limit violation is the major cause for road accidents in Lagos.
“The major cause of accidents is speeding. Some motorists drive above the approved limit. This is likely to lead to an accident. Three things can be linked to accidents, notably human factor, mechanical factor, or the condition of the vehicle,” he said.
“Other factors include disregard for traffic rules, underage driving, and driving under the influence of alcohol consumption. Some vehicles are also rickety. Poor maintenance of highways are also causes of accidents.”
John Olusegun, a traffic analyst, said that despite the urban legend, it appears that the dynamics for road accidents is changing and Lagos would have to be more careful as they go about celebrating in the next two weeks of festivities.
Commuting in the city may be hectic with ongoing construction projects, but it is advisable to obey traffic rules and be circumspect while on the road in Lagos.