Young age as a predictor of poor road safety practices of commercial motorcyclists in Oyo state, Nigeria

Respondents with scores ≤ 17.5 (i.e. less than or equal to half of the maximum obtainable score of 35) were categorized as having poor road safety practices. Descriptive statistics, chi-square and multiple logistic regression tests were conducted. Selected socio-demographic and occupation-related factors were controlled for in the logistic regression analysis.

Results : All respondents were male, 80.1% had been riding for commercial purposes for less than five years and 73.0% had other jobs in addition to commercial riding. Road safety practices were generally poor as 84.4% of commercial riders were categorized as having poor road safety practices. Almost all (98.6%) respondents aged < 25 years compared to 84.3% of those aged 25 to < 35 years and 76.8% of those ≥ 35 years had poor road safety practices.

This difference was statistically significant. Following logistic regression, younger age (<25 years) remained predictive of poor road safety practices. Motorcyclists aged < 25 years had about 16 times higher odds of having poor road safety practices compared to those aged 35 years and more (OR = 15.72, 95% CI =1.82 – 135.91).

Conclusion : Most studies conduct only bivariate analysis to test the association between age and road practices of commercial motorcyclists; however, we investigated the influence of potential confounding variables using multivariate analysis. Our findings confirmed young age as a predictor of poor road safety practices among our sample of commercial motorcyclists and emphasizes the need for road safety programmes to target this category of riders.

The current minimum age for obtaining a riders' license in Nigeria is 18 years, our findings suggest that it might be beneficial to increase the age at which riders in our study area can obtain a commercial riders' license to above 25 years.