By Kamil Opeyemi
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says road traffic fatalities significantly reduced in the first half of 2023 by 15.5 percent.
This is contained in statement released by FRSC’s Spokesman, Assistant Corps Marshal Bisi Kazeem, on Wednesday in Abuja.
Kazeem said that the corps recorded a total of 5,700 road traffic crashes (RTCs) as against 6,627 recorded during the same period in the preceding year 2022.
He said there was 14 per cent reduction in RCTs as captured in the FRSC road traffic crash dashboard within the period under review.
According to him, the corps also witnessed 14 per cent reduction in the number of rescued victims with injuries between January and June.
He added that the corps rescued a total of 16,716 accident survivours in 2023, as against the 19,440 injured in accidents during the same period in 2022.
“On the number of people killed, the corps also recorded a significant reduction within the same operational period in review
“According to the crash data report, in the first six months of the year 2023, the corps recorded a total of 2,850 fatalities as against 3,375 fatalities in the same period in 2022, representing 15.5 per cent reduction,” he said.
Kazeem quoted the FRSC Corps Marshal, Dauda Biu, as attributing the modest achievement to a number of strategies and innovations in enforcement activities.
He said that there was improved presence and visibility of FRSC personnel, public enlightenment and engagement with partners within the period under review.
Biu charged motorists to desist from bad driving habits, adding that the Corps would continue to monitor and deal with any driving infraction.
This, he said, would be by sanitising the highways and entrenching safety values and measures on the over 200,000 kilometers road network across the country.