1,936 killed in road crashes in 6 months 'FRSC

THE Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), on Tuesday, revealed that about 1,936 persons were killed in road traffic accidents across the country between January and June this year.The corps Public Education Officer, Mr Jonas Agwu, released the grim statistics in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), while presenting the half year report of the FRSC's operations in 2012 to newsmen. He, however, said the figures of 1,936 persons compared to the 2,218 in the first half of 2011 showed 12.7 per cent reduction, an indication that the 'corps was on course of meeting its set target of reducing crash related fatalities by 20 per cent in the year 2012.'According to him, it was a worrisome trend that, in spite of efforts to reduce the number of road crashes in the country, road accidents soared by about 21.6 per cent in 2012, as compared to the 2011 figures.Agwu noted that the corps was disturbed by the high rate of road crashes in the first quarter of 2012 and had had to re-strategise and mandate field commanders to reduce RTC and fatality by half in the second quarter of 2012.He added that the immediate outcome from this order was that in the second quarter, crash related fatalities had reduced by 47.5 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2012.Agwu further noted that as a result of improved enforcement, offenders and offences in the second quarter increased respectively by 47.2 per cent and 49.3 per cent over the figures of the first quarter, disclosing that a total of 236, 556 offenders were arrested during the period under review.He added that the corps increased from four to 12, Emergency Ambulance Points in line with the pillar 5 of the United Nations' (UN) Decade of Action and the FRSC's Strategic Goal One of reducing fatalities by 20 per cent.Agwu also disclosed that the production of the vehicle number plates and national driver's licences dropped from 208, 064 to 97, 878 and 122, 873 to 26, 942 in 2011 and 2012 respectively.He added that the National Assembly had suspended the production of the national driver's licence and vehicle number plates, in the months of April, May and June 2012.
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