Seasonal climatic variations and road accidents in Lagos, Nigeria
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Date
2012
Authors
Ayeni, A.O.
Oni, S.I.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Geography & Regional Planning, University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria
Abstract
There are various causes of road accidents, some of which include carelessness, drunkenness, mal-functioning traffic lights, bad roads, road worthless vehicles and climatic conditions. This study examined road accidents in Lagos State, Nigeria in relation to seasonal climatic variations for 6 years (2005 - 2010). The road accidents data were sourced from the archives of the Federal Road Safety Commission and Nigeria Police Force (RS 2.1 Lagos) while the climatic data were sourced from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency Oshodi, Lagos. In order to generate the total monthly occurrence of road accidents, the number of accidents occurred in each month were summed while monthly climatic variables average was determined using Arithmetic mean. The results revealed that on the average, 46.69% accidents occurred in dry season. This indicates an increase of 6.62% in the rainy season. The higher cases of recorded accidents in the rainy season are attributed to the slippery condition of road surfaces and low visibility. The casualty cases is about 45.64% during the dry season which increased by 8.64% in the raining season. The highest and lowest casualties were recorded in the June and April respectively. Of the 4375 death recorded, 50.22% occurred in dry season with the highest incidence of 431 in the month of December. Correlations results shown strong positive relationship between rainfall and accident cases while temperature and accident cases revealed a negative relationship. The results indicate that the frequency of accidents is nearly equal in all climatic soasons, but higher in the wet weather.
Description
Keywords
Road , accident , deaths , slippery conditions , variation , Lagos
Citation
Ayeni A. O. and S. I. Oni (2012): Seasonal climatic variations and road accidents in Lagos, Nigeria. Proceedings of the 2012 Annual Conference on Climate Change and Variability - Saving our tomorrow today edited by Odjugo, P.A.O., Asikhia, M.O. and Ikelegbe, O.O. pg 120 -124