The naked road

The second pillar of the UN Decade of Action spells out the need to improve the safety of road networks for the benefit of all road users, especially the most vulnerable: pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. Despite the current efforts of Nigerian government, what do you think of road signage on Nigerian roads? Inadequate? Bastardized by […]

The second pillar of the UN Decade of Action spells out the need to improve the safety of road networks for the benefit of all road users, especially the most vulnerable: pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. Despite the current efforts of Nigerian government, what do you think of road signage on Nigerian roads? Inadequate? Bastardized by hawkers, villagers? Do you know that a good number of Nigerians who drive are ignorant of road signs? What do you think about transportation safety generally? Well, reflect on America’s assessment of safety and transportation in Nigeria – safety of public transportation; poor urban road conditions/maintenance; poor rural road conditions/maintenance: poor availability of roadside assistance; poor roads are generally poor condition, causing damage to vehicles and contributing to hazardous traffic conditions. There are few traffic conditions. There are few traffic lights or stop signs.
It is against this backdrop and the need to buy into the Corps’ strategies for safer roads that this piece will focus on road signage. It is common for us to lament over the state of our roads and the inadequacy of road furniture. Strictly speaking, how many of us truly comply with the ‘inadequate’ signs that we have? As a Christian, the Bible says that he that is faithful in little will be faithful in much. What moral justification do we have to complain about inadequate signs when we rarely obey the ‘scant’ ones we have?
A brief history of emergency road signs will be helpful in appreciating its importance. The earliest road signs were milestones, giving distance or directions. For example, the Romans erected stone columns throughout their empire, giving the distance to Rome. In the middle ages, multi-directional signs at intersections became common, giving directions to cities and towns.
Traffic signs became more important with the development of automobiles. The basic patterns of most traffic signs were set at the 1908 International Road Congress in Rome. Since then, there has been considerable change. Today, they are almost all metal rather than wood and are coated with reflective sheeting of various types of nighttime and low light visibility. Road marking was introduced into the United Kingdom in the 1920’s. The United Nations harmonized and introduced international traffic signs after the Second World War. That is why from South Africa in Africa to London in Europe, including the United States of America, their signs all look alike.
In 1995, the United Kingdom had 2, 500, 000 signs and signals, 850, 000 road markings and 700, 000 road studs within roads in England alone. In Nigeria, adequate records of signs are yet to be derived but available records of clustered billboards, which have little possible effect on highways safety, are about 50, 000 from 109 registered outdoor advertising companies.
Road signs are highway pictures provided to assist pedestrians and road users in the safe usage of the highway. They are basically placed at the roadside to impart information to road users on traffic regulations, special hazards and other road conditions. You should not only be familiar with the individual signs, you should recognize the special shapes and colours because the signs are classified and coded according to functions and retro-reflectivity. What then is retro-reflectivity? It is the return of light incident to the source in the direction it came. Retro-reflectivity is the basic quality requirement of highway appurtenances. Retro-reflectivity increases road safety. If some minimum reflectivity is not maintained, the signs, delineations or markings will not accomplish the job they are intended to perform. Our signs, according to FERMA publications, are yet to be of international standard. Except for roads in some parts of Abuja and Lagos, our highways are yearning for United Nations international standard signs and markings both in shape, colors and above all in retro-reflectivity.
The manual on uniform traffic control devices requires that signs and pavement markings should be reflectionised or illuminated. The concern for retro-reflectivity of pavement markings and signs caused the United States Congress to pass a law in 1993 that requires the federal highways administration  to establish minimum maintained levels of retro-reflectivity of signs and pavement markings. We can enforce a little bit of reflectivity into our highways appurtenances.
 A pavement marking that is not reflectorised or illuminated, says FERMA, is like a cosmetic application of white powder on a lady’s face that wears off with little perspiration. But a pavement marking is meant for safety and not for aesthetics.  It is not meant to be like applied lipstick on a woman’s lips, which sticks to the drinking cup after few sips. Pavement marking is meant to be of a high luminous intensity and not to be picked up by vehicle tyres after few passes.
It is expected that if minimum retro-reflectivity is maintained in our pavement markings, signs and delineations, there will be increase in night-time and poor weather safety on our roads and ultimately fewer crashes, injuries and fatalities will be reported. Retro-reflectivity is a critical element that has helped US Department of Transport achieve its safety goals of reducing fatalities by 20%. Your knowledge of the traffic rules and regulations is of crucial importance as it ensures good driving culture.  Remember the biblical injunction which says obedience is better than sacrifice.  Let it be your key phrase always.
Learn the signs and obey them.
The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Japan have made significant progress in redressing road crash. Underlying this progress is the consciousness on the part of motorists to do it right while realizing the need to adopt new approaches to road safety. One of these new approaches to road safety is the safe system approach which requires that the road system be designed to expect and accommodate human error, recognising that preventive efforts notwithstanding, road users remain fallible and crashes will invariably occur. It exploits synergies between measures that address infrastructure, vehicles and driver behavior when they are designed in concert. The basic strategy of a safe system approach is to ensure that in the event of a crash, the impact energies remain below the threshold likely to produce either death or serious injury. This threshold will vary depending upon the level of protection offered to the road users involved. For example, the chances of survival for an unprotected pedestrian hit by a vehicle diminish rapidly at speeds greater than 30km/h, whereas for a properly restrained motor vehicle occupant, the critical impact speed is 50km/h for side impact crashes and 70km/h for head-on crashes.