The Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, has expressed the determination of the Corps to implement measures to reduce the incidence of child road mortality.
Dr. Oyeyemi spoke at a stakeholder’s workshop on child road safety jointly organised by the FRSC and the World Bank to deliberate on the use of road.
He said that the Corps had in the last three decades sustained its emphasis on strategies, programmes and processing aimed at reducing the number of children killed or injured on the road.
He emphasized that the Corps had consistently focused on reducing exposure to mobility risk through dedicated actions that were impactful and evidence based.
“In the series of interface with the World Bank and other development partners, some gaps were observed, thus necessitating the inclusion of the child road safety strategy in the reviewed Nigeria Road Safety Strategy 11, NRSSS.
“We anticipate the final approval of the document from the Federal Executive Council. FEC.
“No doubt, with the inclusion of the Child Road Safety Strategy in NRSS 11 document, the stage is now set for a more comprehensive approach that is expected to yield higher dividends,” he said.
Dr. Oyeyemi also noted that the World Health Organisation, WHO, had in 2018 said that road traffic injuries were currently the leading causes of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years.
He added that the global burden of disease study estimates that road traffic injury was the cause of death for children aged 5 -14 years.
“It was also estimated that in 2017, the figure must have caused Nigeria about $1.8 billion as statistics from the FRSC data base show that between 2015 and 2019, 9,809 children suffered various degrees of injuries from 1, 884 Rood Traffic crashes, RTC.’ he said.
President of the Fire Officers Wives Association, FOWA, Mrs. Larai Liman said that the inclusion of child road-road safety strategy in the NRSS 11 would go a long way in addressing the problems with children.
Mrs. Liman said that most schools were built on the highways and had no signs to warn that children were within such areas, saying that such had led to death of many children.
She said the children most times used the road by themselves thereby causing more harm than good as nobody was there to help them cross the roads.
“I will advise schools to ensure that they put road signs for children in order to help them avoid cars and stay off road accidents,” she said.
Source: NAN
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