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Stakeholders play a crucial role in ensuring the smooth design and implementation of policies worldwide. This research presents the results of three focus groups carried out with stakeholders from different transport ministries and agencies involved in road safety in Nigeria. It aimed to understand their perception of road safety in Nigeria through discussing the road safety situation, measures, and strategies for improvement. Results showed that poor road design, organisation and implementation of road safety legislation, road user behaviour and inadequate research were impeding the improvement of road safety in Nigeria. Amongst the road safety measures discussed, public education and information campaigns were rated by each stakeholder group as very effective and easy to implement despite this not being supported by the wider literature. However, there were some variations in perception regarding the effectiveness of measures such as traffic control, road design and maintenance. Improving the road safety situation in Nigeria would require more concerted effort and an overall system-based policy reform involving both government and road users. The results of this study will contribute to and provide research evidence-based recommendations needed to design and develop integrated road safety policies and sustainable implementation strategies in Nigeria and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This study explored traffic behaviour and conflicts of various road users in Owerri, Imo State Nigeria. • TCT was applied to evaluate and categorise conflicts. • Binary Logistic model was developed to investigate factors influencing conflict severity. • Factors identified were direction of Traffic, gender (rel.), age (rel.), speed and time of day. • Results highlight the applicability of surrogate safety measures in traffic safety assessment in a developing country. Abstract Road traffic crashes are a major public health problem affecting those living in developing countries, exacerbated by the lack of available resources to tackle the issue (WHO, 2015). Whilst crash reduction measures have been developed and implemented, there has been limited success in developing countries and the crash rate keeps increasing. Partly to blame are the lack of empirical research and high quality crash data. Data do exist – but their reliability is questionable, with respect to the data collection methods used and underreporting. This study, undertaken in Nigeria, used surrogate safety measures based on systematic observation of traffic behaviour and conflicts to assess the behaviour of different road users and investigate the role various factors play in determining conflict severity. Data were analysed using the Traffic Conflict Technique and binary logistic regression. Results show that direction of traffic, time of day and the relevant road user's age, gender and speed are important determinants of conflict severity. This study highlights the applicability of surrogate safety measures in traffic safety assessment in a developing country and demonstrates that quality data needed for road safety assessment in developing countries could be collected over a short period of time by making use of resources which are readily available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]