The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has appealed to the Benue Government to assist it in offering emergency care services to all road crash victims in the state.
The FRSC Sector Commander in the state, Mr Yakubu Mohammed, made the appeal on Monday in Makurdi during the 2021 “World Day of Remembrance For Road Traffic Victims” in Makurdi.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the remembrance day which holds every third week of November, seeks to sympathise with victims of road crashes and to encourage families of the victims.
Mohammed, who disclosed that accidents accounted for more than 80 percent of road crashes across the country, regretted that most of the victims were young people aged between 15 and 35.
He also appealed to other stakeholders in the transportation industry and philanthropists to always assist hospitals with drugs and consumables for road crash victims.
Reeling out the statistics for road crashes in the state in 2020, the sector commander said ” out of 337 crashes recorded with 41 fatalities and 70 deaths with 800 having various degrees of injuries, speeding accounted for 331 of the entire accidents.”
He explained that in 2021, 66 road crashes were recorded amounting to 16 deaths while 132 people suffered various degrees of injuries.
According to him, road traffic crashes are the leading causes of death across the country with males being their worst victims.
He, therefore, called for urgent steps by stakeholders to halt the trend to remove Nigeria from the index of countries with unsafe roads in the world.
Mohammed also urged vehicle operators to comply with the installation of the speed limit device to mitigate road crashes.
He also urged drivers ” to regulate their speed limit to 30km per hour in built-up areas, streets and villages”.
He said that the command had identified 23 road traffic flash points across the state and was working with Community First Responders and Red Cross personnel to handle road crashes in the state.
The sector commander appealed to traditional rulers and opinion leaders in Benue communities to caution their people against stealing from accident victims.(NAN)
