The Zonal Commanding Officer, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Zone RS2 Lagos, Mr. Wole Olaniran has attributed the high rate of accidents on the nation's road to the non-chalant attitude of motorists and other road users.

Speaking at the formal presentation of Haulage and Logistics magazine in Lagos recently.Mr. Olaniran lamented the adverse effect of poor attitude of the people to road safety on the nation's economy.

Consequently, he harped on the need for an appraisal of the transport policy; especially as it affects the road. This is even as he said there was need for every stakeholder to be involved in addressing the problems of the nation's road transportation network.

Using Lagos as a case study, he gave a scary breakdown of statistics of road accidents recorded on the nation's road yearly.

According to him, "statistics from the Police and FRSC revealed that between 1989 and 2008 (19 years), 77,346 road crashes were recorded on Lagos road. Of this figure, 12,978 cases were fatal representing an increase of 17 per cent, 32,726 were serious representing 43 per cent.

The FRSC Commander said a total of 15,036 people lost their lives during the period in review." He added, "This is just Lagos State alone. You can imagine what happened nationwide. The statistics are scary and for a country that relies so much on road transportation as one of the driving forces of its economy because of the failure of other modes of transportation, such as the railway, waterway, and the pipelines, the impact on the socio-economic life of Nigeria could be best imagined." he asserted.

He also questioned, "Do we give preference to making profit as road transporters than we give to safety, research, public education. Do our political leaders pay enough attention to road transportation in terms of adequate budgeting and actual release of funds to cater for road transportation challenges?"

Olaniran therefore called for adequate funding of the transport sector, good road maintenance culture and safety awarenss campaign "There is need to introduce safe road practices as part of the education curriculum to catch the interest of younger generation of Nigerians and encourage child road safety advocacy in all our primary and secondary schools.

"As the year draws to a close and we prepare for end of the year festivities, we all need to plan journeys ahead, avoid last minute rush, avoid night journeys, over speeding arid alcoholism."

In the same vein, The Chief Executive Officer, Lagos State Drivers' Institute, Mr. Ayodeji Oyedokun; who spoke on "Developing road safety policy in haulage industry in Nigeria", called for the adoption of proactive approach to road accidents.

He further stated that as part of the road safety policy; organizations need to have a clear policy statement, which would be communicated to all drivers, setting safety directions and general objectives.

He also noted the need for a well planned approach to safety, with performance standard for eliminating or reducing risk on the nation's road to the barest minimum.