Institute urges stakeholders to curb road crashes through good road designs
NAN-H-58
Road
By Kate Obande-Okewu
Abuja, June 7, 2017 (NAN) The Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NIBRRI) on Wednesday in Abuja warned engineers and contractors against ‘fire brigade’ approach in road construction to curb road accidents in the country.
Prof. Danladi Matawal, Director-General, NIBRRI, gave the warning in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the sideline of an ongoing three days workshop on “Safer Roads by Design”.
NAN reports that the workshop was organised by the Nigerian Institution of Highway Transportation Engineers in collaboration with the International Road Federation.
Matawal explained that a lot of procedures and tests were omitted in a road that was constructed in a hurry.
“Fire brigade has been quite conspicuous with the evolution of roads construction in the country.
“This is a situation where roads are constructed without designs and these leads to a lot of ugly accident because intuition is not always correct.
“The best way to avoid it is to design every feature of the road, which includes pavement, drainage and so on before procurement or even awarding the road contract,” he said.
The director-general added that a detailed road design would allow professional advice as solutions to road challenges before they were constructed to enhance safety on our roads.
The NIBRRI boss noted that the road sector played a dominant role in the economy of the country and must be carefully designed before construction.
According to him, pressure from constituencies of politicians, who have timeline to deliver their projects leads to this fire brigade approach.
He further said that such roads poses serious threats to the lives of the road users as every road needed to go through a process of planning and design in construction.
He told NAN that the institute had embarked on Nigerian road safety audit, studying road failures and making recommendations.
Matawal also said that the organisation was studying and correlating optimal speeds and accidents on roads such as the Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina roads and many others.
He added NIBRRI was determined to implement the three Es which are Educating, Enforcement and Engineering with focus on safer roads through designs.
He, however, called on all relevant agencies to go through a road design before awarding its contract to save lives and address untimely deaths caused by road crashes.(NAN)
KTE/TO/AFA
Edited by Tola Okinboye/Felix Ajide