The staggering rate of road traffic crashes which could partly be traced to our bad roads, no doubt has become a major source of anxiety to the people whose lives and investments have become threatened by these frequent but avoidable crashes.Of fundamental concerns are issues of wanton loss of human lives with the attendant multiplier effects.Nigeria as a nation relies heavily on road transport movement of commuters, as well as haulage of goods to their destinations. One can only imagine the volume of traffic daily plying our trunk and secondary roads commuting humans, hauling raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished goods from one point to the other. Of course one would appreciate the vital role of the road to our social and economic development.It is, however, doubtful if we have aligned ourselves to the fact that the road is a valuable public asset which must be treasured. The deplorable conditions of roads generally in Africa are such that road traffic crashes in the continent and by extension, Nigeria, has become the third biggest killer while the roads have been reckoned to be the most dangerous in the world.Eventhough the roads are in themselves bad, road traffic crashes often contribute to the worsening of the condition of the roads as vehicles that burn out on the road contribute in weakening them while bridges are destroyed particularly the protectors or railings by their sides.There is no doubting the fact that one of the most potent indicators of the state of a country is the condition of its roads. It would be hard to believe that with the present conditions of our roads nationwide, any foreigner coming to our country for the first time can have positive impression of our nation. It would also be hard to believe that any visitor to our country can survive his or her road journey from Lagos to Benin, from Aba to Calabar, from Lokoja to Abuja, from Ibadan to Ilorin and so on and so forth. This is no doubt a big damage to our image in the mind of a first time foreign visitor to our country. The collapse of road infrastructure in many parts of the country has led to a negative effect on trade and commerce, decline in agricultural activities and adversely affects the movement of agricultural produce from rural to urban areas and across the country resulting in a slide in the country's agricultural output.The government, at various levels should pay greater attention to the deplorable conditions of our roads in order to save our people from avoidable and premature deaths and remove us from the shame of being one of the countries with bad and unsafe roads in the world. Most of the road traffic crashes occur due to the problem of decayed infrastructure hence the need for an overhaul of road conditions in the country and an overhaul of the entire road transport sector of the economy. This is the time to look at other means of transportation because the pressure on the road has been overwhelming while genuine efforts should be made to develop a consistent road policy.Roads should not just be built without the safety components being taken into consideration. A system where safety is the prime consideration should be developed as it will no longer be acceptable to build bigger and longer roads if money will not be spent to make the roads safe. There must be simple and affordable features such as footpaths, safe crossing points, safe junction layouts, cycle paths and uphill lanes.There is the need for more sophistication in the design of our roads, such that the roads will have five- star safety measures. A situation where roads are constructed by the lowest and cheapest specification only to carry goods and passengers from one point to the other as fast as possible without safety in mind will definitely add to the danger on the road network.
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