Causes of Accidents among Commercial Motorcyclists (Okada) in Borno State: Implications for Counselling

Abstract

Motor cycle accidents have become the most serious problem threatening the entire Nigerian population. It is against this background that this study attempted to investigate the causes of accidents among commercial motorcyclists in Borno State, Nigeria. The population of the study consisted of all the commercial motorcyclists in the State. However, a sample of 2000 commercial motorcyclists was purposively selected for the study. A twenty - item questionnaire titled “Causes of Accident among Commercial Motorcyclists in Borno State Questionnaire (CACOMBOQ)” designed by the researchers, was used. One research question and two hypotheses were answered and tested in the study, respectively. Frequency counts, percentages and rank ordering and rank difference correlation coefficient were the statistics employed to answer the research question and test the hypotheses respectively. The findings from the study revealed that influence of drugs, over - speeding, unlicensed and untrained motorcyclists, impatience by motorcyclists, over loading, wrong over - taking, bad roads, non observance of traffic laws, non use of rear mirror and receiving calls while riding were the major causes of accidents among the commercial motorcyclists. Also there were significant relationships among
age, educational background and causes of accidents. Counselling implications based on the
findings include posing threat to lives of the young and the old while it was recommended that organizing enlightenment campaigns for commercial motorcyclists, obtaining motorcycle driving licenses by motorcyclists and imposing fines on Okada riders who flout any traffic laws among others.

Keywords: Causes of accidents, Commercial motorcyclists, Counselling implications

Nigerian Journal of Guidance and Counselling Vol. 13 (1) 2008: pp. 171-179