Nigeria: Motorcycle crashes – Implications for Control

In Nigeria – as in many low income countries – motorcycles are used for more than recreational or occasional transportation. They are integral parts of the transport system, carrying workers and students, acting as delivery vehicles, and serving as taxis. Because their uses are different, so are injury patterns – and the ways we might undertake to reduce them.

Using data collected from patients injured in motorcycle crashes and seen in three tertiary care hospitals in southwest Nigeria, Oluwadiya and his colleagues have recently published a report on the motorcycle crash characteristics. Their report provides an intriguing glimpse of just how different motorcycling is in Nigeria, compared to Europe or the United Sates of America.

In Nigeria, more than half (52%) of the registered motor vehicles are motorcycles. About one-fifth (21%) of the nation’s registered commercial vehicles are motorcycles. Often more than one person is on a motorcycle. In Oluwadiya’s study, 49.8% of the injured were motorcycle passengers. And many (24.7%) were unlicensed and another 13.1% did not respond to the question about licensing.

Nearly three-quarters of the injured (71.9%) were students or low income wage earners on their way to school or work when they crashed. The proportion of pedestrians injured (13.1%) is much greater than usually seen in high income countries.

Few motorcyclists were wearing helmets (3.5%) in spite of various laws in effect requiring their use. Many of the injuries involved a crash with another vehicle (48.5%) or motorcycle (16.3%). In high income countries, motorcycle crashes are frequently single vehicle “loss of control” crashes.

This study by Oluwadiya and colleagues has important implications for injury prevention strategies. Motorcycles are important as commercial vehicles and they are used for regular transportation as well as recreation. This means that prevention strategies have to address not only prevention but the fact that these vehicles are essential. Road conditions – poor maintenance, heavily trafficked, and few or obstructed sidewalks – account for differences in crash patterns and in the proportions of those injured compared to high income country. These are patterns likely to be seen in other low income countries as well, especially in urban areas.

Oluwadiya KS, Kolawole IK, Adegbehingbe OO, et al. Motorcycle crash characteristics in Nigeria: Implication for control. Accid Anal Prev 2009;41:294-8.

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