Analysis Of The Causes Of Road Traffic Accident In Nigeria: A Multivariate Analytic Approach

This study investigates the root causes of road traffic crash on the Nigerian highway using multivariate analytic tools. The dataset for the study was obtained from NBS website, it consists of the number of road traffic crashes recorded as a result of eighteen conventional events across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of the federation. R-software was used for the analysis. Correlation matrix of the eighteen variables was obtain and used to conduct a principal component analysis. Factor analysis was further carried out on the data, the result showed that not less than nine factors is required to explain the variation in the data. Factors identified in this study describe the root cause of RTA on the Nigerian highway. They include: motorist’ exhaustion level, traffic rules violation, greed of commercial motorist to maximize profit, structural integrity of tyres, bad roads, recklessness of motorists on the highway and others.