ASSESSMENT OF ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS INVOLVING MINIBUSES IN ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Road traffic accidents have become a common occurrence in Nigeria and it constitutes a menace. Although both the developed and developing nations of the world suffers varying degrees of road traffic accidents, the developing countries clearly dominate with Nigeria counted among the African countries that are worst hit. The trend of road traffic accidents involving minibuses in Ondo State, Nigeria has been examined with a view to assessing the vehicle types, drivers’ age and experience as possible predisposing factors to road traffic accidents in the study area. Sample frame and size for the study covered range and number of road traffic accidents across locations in Ondo State, with specific cases of the involvement of minibuses in traffic accidents. Secondary data on road traffic accidents involving minibuses collected from Ondo State Command of Federal Road Safety Corps were analysed based on the objectives of the study. The study made use of both descriptive and inferential statistics to analysed the data for the achievement of the objectives. The descriptive statistics include frequency, percentages and mean, while the inferential statistics made use of correlation and regression, which was also used to test the hypotheses for the study. The result of the study revealed; time of road traffic accident, driver’ experience and speed of vehicle to be major factors that determined the degree of severity of road traffic accidents and speed violation to be the leading causal factor of road traffic accidents. Recommendations have been made on measures to reduce road traffic crashes and improve road safety in the study area.