Impacts of rainfall on road crashes in Onitsha metropolis of Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

The World Health Organization, in particular, is concerned about road traffic accidents that occur during rainfall. However, this has resulted in global deaths, injuries, and property losses. The effects of rainfall on road crashes in the Onitsha metropolis were investigated in this study. The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) provided rainfall data from 2009 to 2018, while the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Awka provided road accident data from 2009 to 2018. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were the statistical approaches used to achieve the research goal. The significance level for all inferential analyses was set at 95 percent (0.05). Yearly road crashes and annual rainfall amount have a negative relationship, according to the findings. Rainfall patterns are negatively and insignificantly linked with annual road crashes (p=0.153>0.05), showing that rainfall patterns are not the cause of road crashes in Onitsha. The correlation between monthly road crashes and rainfall received during wet season months is not significant, as demonstrated by the p-value (0.577). The relationship between monthly road crashes and rainfall recorded during dry season is not significant, as indicated by the p-value (0.797). The findings further reveal that, there are non-linear correlations between the rate of road crashes and the two seasons of the year because drivers were more careful when driving under rainfall. Therefore, slower driving during rainfall and parking of cars during torrential downpours are recommended by the study to further reduce the probability of road accidents.