[dropcap]A[/dropcap] total of 12, 077 road crashes were recorded across the country in 2015, says Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission.
Oyeyemi, disclosed this in Uyo on Wednesday, while addressing a public enlightenment forum organised for transport stakeholders at old Akwa Transport Corporation (AKTC) park.
Oyeyemi, who was represented at the event by the Assistant Corps Marshal in charge of Policy, Research and Statistics, Dr Michael Olagunju, said that out of 12, 077 road crashes recorded last year, 5,400 people died, representing 65 per cent of those involved in the crashes.
Oyeyemi then said that the commission would not go back on the Oct.1 deadline for the implementation of speed limiting device nationwide, as approved President Muhammadu Buhari.
The corps marshal regretted that most of the crashes would have been avoided if appropriate safety measures were adopted by the motorists while plying the highways.
He described the statistics on road crashes as staggering and reiterated that the speed limiting device would save Nigerians the embarrassment on the highways.
“Most of the road crashes are preventable,” he stressed, adding, “if we are able to bring down the speed, we will be saving a lot of lives on our highways.”
In his remarks,the State Transport Commissioner, Mr Godwin Ntukude, expressed satisfaction with the introduction of the speed limiting device, calling for a technical session with all stakeholders to enlighten them on the workability of the device.
“There is no policy introduced by government that will not have a positive effect on lives of the people,” he explained. “Let us have technical session with experts to ascertain whether it can be installed on an expired (Tokumbo) vehicles or not.
“It is important for us to know this so that the good policy would not work otherwise negatively,” Ntukude said.
Earlier, the FRSC Public Relations Officer, Mr Godgift Uwen, said that the introduction of speed limiting device would make Nigeria join the league of nations like Japan, Australia and Sweden.
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