The FRSC Tollgate Unit Commander in Benin, Mr Adewale Ameen, has identified speed limit violation as the major cause of accidents on highways within his area of jurisdiction.

Ameen made the statement in Benin at a seminar, organised by FRSC Tollgate Unit on the theme: “Post Crash Care and Fatality Reduction’’.

He compared the accident rate for January, 2015, to June, 2015, with that of the same period for 2016 and said there was an increase of five per cent which resulted in 50 per cent increase in fatalities.

Ameen said most of the fatal accidents involved high occupancy vehicles crashing into trucks or trailers from behind.

He identified some of the black spots along the route as Km 74, Ofusu village, Km 64, Ugboigue village, Km 52, Okada Junction, Km 39, Ogbemudia Farm, Km 32, Ovia River Slope and Km 19, Ekiadolor Junction.

In his speech, the Zonal Commander of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Shehu Zaki,  Zone RS5, said that Nigeria was among five developing countries with the deadliest roads in the world.

Zaki, whose jurisdiction covers Edo, Delta and Anmabra states, said it was worrisome that road traffic crashes had remained the leading cause of death for young people around the world between the ages of 15 and 29.

“This group accounts for three per cent of the gross domestic products of low and middle income countries. This, undoubtedly, has economic and social implications to government, societies and individuals,’’ he said.

“In Nigeria, for the year 2014, a total of 10,380 crashes occurred which involved 16,779 vehicles and claimed 5,996 lives with 32,063 persons injured.’’

Zaki, however, said that FRSC had in recent years improved its service delivery aimed at reducing road crashes on Nigerian roads.

He said the corps had acquired and injected more patrol vehicles, built and maintained 26 roadside clinics, in addition to 37 zebra on critical corridors across the country.

“Creating safer monitoring environment is no doubt a herculean task involving a lot of activities , programmes and approaches which include and not limited to highway patrol, public enlightenment and rescue services, all aimed at crash prevention.

“Preventing Road Traffic Crashes (RTC) from occurring should be the main goal to be pursued but the reality is that crashes continue to occur; we therefore have to be prepared to mitigate the consequences arising there from,’’ he said.

Zaki encouraged participants to actively participate in the interactive session to benefit maximally from the objective of the workshop to check preventable deaths and disability from RTC.