Traffic Law: Accident Rate Drops By 60% —LASUTH CMD

The Chief Medical Director, Lagos State Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Prof David Oke says that since the beginning of enforcement of the road traffic law, accident cases have dropped by 60 percent in all General Hospitals in Lagos, southwest Nigeria.

He said the number of accident victims received in the public hospitals had greatly reduced since the traffic law came into existence.

Oke, who spoke when the Commissioner for Transportation, Comrade Kayode Opeifa led other top government officials to the hospital to commiserate with road accident victims, said the traffic law had helped to curb the rate of accidents in the state.

“Prior to the enforcement of the law, Okada accident victims had dominated the hospital wards, thus making it difficult for medical experts to attend to other accident victims,” he said.

Another LASUTH medical expert, Dr Mustapha Ibrahim disclosed that accident rate had also dropped in private hospitals across the state since the commencement of the enforcement of the road traffic law

“Before the traffic law came, you can hardly wait for five minutes without you seeing vehicles arriving with okada victims. We received a minimum of 40 to 45 Okada victims daily but the story is different today. We now have more bed spaces like never before. This is the beauty of the law on our part,” he said.

“Government must not relent because the rate is gradually rising again and this is not unconnected with the few okada operators that are coming out to operate,” he stated.

According to the Commissioner for Transportation, Opeifa, the traffic law was meant to prevent avoidable death and help manage resources that would have been spent on the treatment of victims.

“We have now made your job easier through the law. We have fewer patients in the surgical ward than it used to be. There are people you are not supposed to see, we are helping to reduce the number of such patients. That is the beauty of traffic law,” Opeifa stated.

He also said the state government would partner with the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps to join forces with the government to enforce the traffic law and urged members of the corps not to break the law through riding okadas on the prohibited routes.