Not less than 79,875 (Seventy-nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five) cases of road accidents have been reported in the country in the last three years.

Official documents obtained by the Economic Confidential showed that the figure represents the total accidents that occurred between 2013 and 2015.

Out of this figure, a total of 29,494 occurred in 2013 with 13,021 cases reported as fatal, 8,917 cases were reported as serious, while the balance of 7,556 cases were designated as minor according to reports obtained by this magazine with careful analysis.

Ogun state however leads all other states in the reported cases of road crashes with 6422, followed by  Lagos state with 6231, Kano came third with 4869, FCT is number four with 4700  cases while the number five position was grabbed by Edo state with 3499. The state with the least number of cases of road crashes in the year under review is Jigawa  with 725.

In the year2014,  the reported cases of accidents amounts to 25,427 out of which 11,665 were fatal, 7,561 were serious and 6,201 cases regarded as minor. The figure for 2014 was however lower than that of 2013 by almost 4000 due to road traffic management sensitization carried out by the combined efforts of both the Police and the Federal Road Safety Corps(FRSC).

In the years 2015, the total road accidents recorded  was 24,954, again below the figure for 2014. Out of this figure, 11,507 cases were fatal, 7,390 were regarded serious while the balance of 6057 were treated as minor.

Investigations by the Economic Intelligence magazine further revealed that the total number of persons involved in accidents within the period under review reached an all-time high of 49,867. Of this figure, 15, 011 persons were killed in the road crashes while the remaining  34,856 were injured.

Of those killed in the accidents, 5539 were for 2013, 4430 for 2014 while the balance of 5042 were those for 2015.

Out of the figure of those injured which was 34,856, 12,372 were for 2013, 12,227 was for 2014 while the remaining figure of 10,257 were for 2015!

A careful analysis by Economic Confidential indicate that out of  79,875 reported cases of  accident, reckless driving accounted for 30.3 percent,  inexperience and mechanical fault accounted for 21.5 percent while and road defects accounted for 21.1 percent .

Further search by our investigating team showed that a  motorcycle to motorcycle collision,  motorcycle to vehicle crashes and vehicle to vehicle accidents are the lead types and have resulted in 38.9 percent, 37.5 percent and 14.9 percent respectively of the total of 15,100  deaths recorded within the period of under review.

File Photo: Accident scene in Asaba, Delta State