Prevalence and Factors Causing Road Traffic Accidents in Lagos State, Nigeria
Kayode Valentine Fowode *
Centre for Occupational Health, Safety and Environment, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
Ify Lawrence Nwaogazie
Centre for Occupational Health, Safety and Environment, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
Brilliance Onyinyechi Anyanwu
Department of Environmental Health Sciences, College of Health Sciences, University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and factors causing road traffic accidents in Lagos State, Nigeria. A purposive sampling technique was adopted to select a total of 384 commercial drivers in Lagos State. The primary sources of data were structured questionnaire. Out of the 384 drivers, 337 responded correctly to the questionnaire showing a response rate of 87.76%. Data were analysed using Mean, ANOVA and Pearson Correlation. Mean score of 2.50 was used as a criterion to accept or reject results. Findings of the study showed that; there was a high prevalence (68%) of road traffic accident among the commercial drivers in Lagos State. More so, age was an important demographic characteristic in contributing to RTAs. In addition, driver factor, vehicle factors and environmental factors all contributed to RTAs with the driver factors being responsible for more than 58% of the road traffic accident reported in the study. It is recommended amongst others that; safety measures should be put in place to mitigate the effect of the identified factors that contribute to the prevalence of RTAs among drivers in Lagos State.
Keywords: Prevalence, driver, vehicle, environmental, road, traffic, accident