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62                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

THE IMPACT OF FEDERAL ROAD SAFETY AWARENESS TEXTS ON THE LEVEL OF 

ROAD ACCIDENTS IN NIGERIA: A SEMIOTIC INVESTIGATION 

 

Dr. Chinwe Ezeifeka 

Department of English Languaguage and Literature 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

Email: cr.ezeifeka@unizik.edu.ng 

& 

Ngozi Florence Ogbogu 

Department of English Language and Literature  

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

 

Abstract 

The major focus of this study is to ascertain the impact of federal road safety awareness texts on the 

level of road accidents in Nigeria from a semiotic perspective. The study is motivated by the 

observation that despite government’s efforts to disseminate information on road safety through road 

signs embedded in FRSC manual the number of people involved in road traffic accidents continue to 

rise every year. The specific objective of this study is to ascertain how icon, indexical and symbolic sign 

are interpretable by road users as well as to determine additional or alternative lexical/grammatical features that 

can be used to complement and substitute the existing road signs for more effective interpretation by road 

users.The present study employed a qualitative research design. The population of this study comprise 

50 motorists in Onitsha metropolis. Usingpurposive sampling technique 43 road awareness texts 

selected from the FRSC Highway Code were used as a thematic model to obtain the views of the 

motorists. This study affirmed that the language of a road traffic code is signs-dependent. These signs 

are intended to identify and warn road users against specific hazards without the use of words. They 

may also describe safety precautions, advise users on the actions to take, or provide other directions 

that can eliminate or reduce hazards. This study discovered that the level of awareness of drivers is a 

serious impediment to drivers understanding of road signs. This study recommends that road signs 

should be redesigned in a manner that could be easily understood by all categories of road users. 

Keywords: FRSC manual, road safety, multimodality, road sign  

 

Introduction 

The study is motivated by the observation that despite government effort to disseminate information 

on road safety through road signs embedded in Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC) manual, numbers of 

road traffic accidents continue to rise every year. Road signs comprise of symbols, indexicals and 

icons mounted or drawn on the roads or roadsides. Road signs are usually the combination of 

linguistic and non-linguistic elements used to give specific information to road users to prevent 

incidences of collision. A multimodal analysis is an approach to discourse that focuses on how 

meaning is realized through the use of multiple modes of communication in addition to written or 

spoken language.  

 

It is noted, however, that despite the road signs that are visible on the roads, accidents still occur due 

to violation of the traffic rules as represented by the signs. This incessant road mishap calls for serious 

questions on the effectiveness of the road signs as a vehicle of information dissemination to the road 

users. This study, therefore, sought to ascertain how road signs which areiconic, indexical and 

symbolicare interpretedbycommercial drivers as well as to determine additional or alternative lexical/grammatical 

features that can be used to complement and substitute the existing road signs for more effective interpretation by 

road users.  

 

Conceptual Clarifications 

Communication 

Humans live a communication-dependent life; hence communication is central to the functioning of 

the society. Akpan, Senam, and Elijah posit that communication involves the reception and 

interpretation of stimuli affected by a mutually intelligible concept called language (685). Lyorza sees 

communication as a kind of meaning-dependent interaction, where the interacting agents share a 



AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021 
 

63                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

common set of signs and semiotic rules (27). Meaning and understanding are therefore central to 

information, be it spoken, written, signs or signal in a given linguistic and cultural community.  

Communication could be verbal or non-verbal, written or unwritten. Hence, Nigeria has designed a 

Road Traffic Code as documented in their manual as a guide for road users, motorists and pedestrians. 

The code includes road signs, road markings, computerized traffic lights, traffic control signals, 

among others, with communicative symbols where necessary or applicable. 

 

Multimodal Discourse  

Road signs are among the forms of a communication system that belong to what has been described as 

multimodal discourse. In this area of study, language is seen as a code, a system structured in ways 

that mean something in an independent medium, either from written text, music or art. The message is 

the meeting point of different codes. Thus, a mode is a means of expression used to convey meaning. 

Each message uses severaliconic, indexical and symbolic modes thus becoming multimodal. Language is 

defined by Eggins as contextual, functional, semantic and semiotic (4). She further declares that the 

most elaborated semiotic system is language as in any interaction; the interlocutors get involved in 

conveying exactly a message the audience should be aware of as well as the right choice of word.  

 

Road Signs and Semiotic Modes  

As defined in the Nigeria Highway Code, the road is a path established overland for the passage of 

vehicles, people, and animals (1). According to Makinde and Opeyemi the road signs convey 

messages in words or symbols and are erected to regulate, warn, or guide road users motorists, and 

pedestrians, etc (608). Human ingenuity has made contacts and links possible among the people at 

different locations in our society through the creation of connectivity within the vast space that makes 

up the society. This connectivity comes in form of roads, riverways, airways, etc. The most visible 

and mostly used by the people, using different types of means of transportation, is the road. The need 

for interconnectivity makes the road network so complex, as there exist different types, such as the 

expressways, two-lane highways, dual carriageways, drive pathways, intersections, roundabout, T-

junctions, interchanges, intercessions, U-turns, etc., all having their complexities (Nigerian Highway 

Code).   

 

In semiotics, the index is the phenomenon of a sign pointing to (or indexing) some object in the 

context in which it occurs. Therefore, a sign that signifies indexically is called an index. The modern 

concept originates in the semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, in which indexicality is one of the 

three fundamental sign modalities, the others being iconicity and symbolism (32). As captioned by 

Silverstein, these are:  

• Icon: a sign in which "the perceivable properties of the sign vehicle itself have isomorphism 

to (up to identify with) those of the entity signaled. That is, the entities are 'likenesses' in 

some sense 

• Index: according to Silverstein (1976) is a sign which "the occurrence of a sign vehicle token 

bears a connection of understood Spatio-temporal contiguity to the occurrence of the entity 

signaled (14). That is, the presence of some entity is perceived to be signaled in the context of 

communication incorporating the sign vehicle. 

• Symbol: the residual class, a sign which is not related to its object by bearing some qualitative 

likeness to it, nor by co-occurring with it in some contextual framework. These "form the 

class of 'arbitrary' signs traditionally spoken of as the fundamental kind of linguistic entity. 

Sign vehicle and entity signaled are related through the bond of a semantico-referential 

meaning which permits them to be used to refer to any member of a whole class or category 

of entities. 

 

Theoretical Framework  

Theory of Semiotics 

This work is anchored on semiotics, which is based on the observations of the German psychologist 

Max Wertheimer (45). This theory posits that recognizing a sign is made possible as a result of the 

“cortical networks” that allow an object to be perceived by the brain concerning space and other 

activities around the object.The first theoretical dimension of this theory is built on the assumption 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_(language_use)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotic_theory_of_Charles_Sanders_Peirce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconicity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_anthropology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_in_General_Linguistics#Arbitrariness


AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021 
 

64                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

that representation and communication always draw on a multiplicity of modes, to add to the 

meaning. It pays attention to analyzing and describing the full collection of meaning-making 

resources that people use (spoken, visual, written, gestural three-dimensional, and others, depending 

on the domain of representation) in different contexts, and to the development of the means that show 

how these are organized to make meaning. The second assumption of multimodality is that over some 

time, resources are socially shaped to become meaning-making resources. These meanings, social, 

individual or affective are further articulated according to the requirements of the social groups or 

communities in the environment. The third multimodal assumption of this theory is that people 

orchestrate meaning through their selection and configuration of modes, foregrounding the 

significance of the interaction between the road signs and the road users. Thus, all communicational 

acts are shaped by the norms and rules operating at the moment of sign making and influenced by the 

motivations and interests of people in a specific social context.  

 

Methodology 

The present study employed a qualitative approach as it is a method most suited for awareness 

campaigns in terms of describing and interpreting meaning embedded in road signs. This study paid 

particular attention to iconic, indexical and symbolic modes as the possible misinterpretation of messages, 

especially whether the image and graphic choices used in the texts could act as constraints during the 

decoding process in social contexts.The population of this study comprise 50 commercial drivers 

Upper Iweka Motor Park Onitsha. Using, purposive sampling technique 43 road awareness texts 

selected from the FRSC Highway Code were used as a thematic model to obtain the views of the 

motorists (1). The data generation of this study was based on two specific procedures. The first 

procedure of this study was aimed at discovering the educational qualification of the drivers while the 

second procedure is based on ascertaining the views of the drivers on the function of the selected 

signs as described in FRSC Highway Code published in 2016. 

 

Data Presentation and Analysis 

From the result obtained from this study, it was discovered that the majority of the drivers at Upper 

Iweka motor Park have the data below: 

Table 1: Bio-data of respondents  

 VARIABLE  NO OF 

RESPONSE 

PERCENTAGE% 

 Table 1: Gender 

1 Male 90 90 

2 Female 0 0 

 TOTAL 90 100.0 

 Table 2: Age Distribution 

1 18-25years 5 6 

2 26-35 years 10 11  

3 36-45 years 32 36 

4 46 years and above  43 47 

 TOTAL 90 100 

 

 Table 3: Educational Qualification Distribution 

 VARIABLE  NO OF 

RESPONSE 

PERCENTAGE 

1 WASSCE/GCE/NECO 67 73 

2 NCE/OND 10 11 

3 B.Sc./HND 14 15 

4 M.Sc./MBA 

 

0 0 

 TOTAL 90 100 

 

    



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65                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

Table 5: Accident Occurrence 

Ratio 

(1)  (2) 1-2 6 7 

(3)  (4) 2-4 15 17 

(5)  (6) 4-5 38 42 

(7)  (8) 6 and above 31 34 

 TOTAL 90 100.0 

 

 

 

Table 7: Years of Experience in driving  

 VARIABLE  NO OF 

RESPONSE 

PERCENTAGE 

1 1-5 years 7 8 

2 5-10 years 28 31 

3 10-15 years 7 8 

4 15-20 years 48 53 

 TOTAL 90 100.0 

Source: Field Survey, 2020 

 

From the review of road signs contained in the federal road safety awareness manual and in line with 

the theory of semiotics as propounded by Charles Sanders Peirce (1958), this study found that 

majority of commercial drivers in Upper Iweka motor parksee road signs as words, numbers, sounds, 

photographs, paintings and road signs among and more. That guide road users on the effective use of 

the roads. 

 

Following the theory of semiotics, the major principle of effective communication is to insist on 

cohesion and coherence in the dissemination of messages.  However, the majority of the drivers at 

the study area complained that they find it difficult to understand some of the road sign. This implies 

that the producers of FRSC texts overlooked the importance of coherent framing. In most texts, the 

idealized information is too abstract to have any relation with the intended theme of the text. This 

view is supported by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) who observe that viewers of spatial 

compositions are intuitively able to judge the weight of the various elements of composition and the 

greater the weight of an element, the greater its salience. Salience or prominence is the result of a 

complex interaction of such elements as size, the sharpness of focus, colour contrast, placement in 

the foreground or background.    

 

Undoubtedly, FRSC texts contain life-saving messages which require a serious mood with which to 

decode the intended meaning. A mixture of certain colours has the potential to project mixed 

interpretations and consequently distort the intended meanings. For example, the graphic messages 

in data 1 and 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 are presented in red (depicting 

danger), while 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 are presented in blurry blue. Yet, the themes in 

the two texts are associated with the dangers and the need to use the road with caution. 

 

This assumption is in line with the postulation of Kress & van Leeuwen (1996) on the effective use 

of colour in the designing of semiotic modes. The colour schema according to the above author is 

outlined below: 

(i) Red:is associated with our most physical needs and our will to survive. It exudes a 

strong and powerful masculine energy. It depicts strong leadership qualities, warmth, 

passion and excitement. It can also depict anger and danger and hostility.  

(ii) White: is associated with purity, innocence, completion, chastity and cleanliness. It 

opens the way for the creation of anything the mind can conceive because its basic 

feature is impartiality and independence.  



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66                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

(iii) Green: is the colour of balance and harmony. It is the colour of growth, the colour of 

spring and rebirth. It renews and restores depleted energy. It gives humans the ability 

to love and nurture themselves and others unconditionally.  

(iv) Black: relates to the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of 

mystery. It keeps things bottle up inside, hidden from the world.   

(v) Blue: is associated with trust, honesty, loyalty and integrity. It is also associated   

with responsibility, inner security and confidence. 

 

Furthermore, the use of semantically appropriate icons, symbols, and indexical should be 

strategically pursued by the formulators of road traffic signs. This is crucial because some texts were 

overloaded with many visual signs which had no explanation will be misleading to the audience.  

This semantic imbalance affected the coherence between the graphic and visual information in the 

process of meaning-making.  For example, the text in data 4 is overloaded with multiple semiotic 

modes. The text contained three different symbols joined together. A critical look at the symbol 

shows that the triple image has different layers of meaning.  This might make the text incoherent 

because it contravenes the regulative principles of textual communication which requires that a 

symbol should be used with minimum effort.  The sematic overload had implications on the 

interpretation of meaning.  Only people who had intertextual knowledge about such signs were not 

able to decipher the intended meanings. Thus, if messages in road safety awareness texts are not 

regulated and coherently packaged, the producer’s risk not fulfilling their objectives. 

 

One of the reasons for the incoherence in FRSC texts pertains to the use of abstract modes. It was 

found that either the visual or graphic mode was abstract. In some instances, both modes were 

ambiguous. Data 1 were with a caption ‘drive and drive’ is a clear case of an ambiguous road traffic 

awareness text.  Coherent multimodal texts are those that communicate a specific, clear, and 

straightforward message. This means that the text must make itself easy and accessible to the 

viewers or readers who, in most cases, have no time to spend reading complicated messages.If the 

image is abstract deciphering of the message becomes rather difficult.  Data two which is an index is 

also a clear case of a straight to the point road sign.  

 

Due to the ever-increasing numbers of road traffic accidents, one would expect those campaign 

coordinators would ensure that brochures are designed as simply as possible, making them 

accessible and comprehensible to the audience. By making images familiar to the audience, it is 

assumed that they would understand and comprehend such images. In road safety awareness 

campaigns, the intentions of the producers of brochures are to design texts whose messages can 

easily be decoded by the target audience driving or walking past. 

 

It was found that in many cases, the visual mode alone was not coherent enough to convey a 

meaningful message, just as the graphic mode was not. The two modes needed to hang together to 

convey any meaning. In certain instances, even where the two modes were read in collaboration, it 

still required a great deal of intertextual knowledge and experience to effectively decode the 

message. This was because there was minimal coherence between the modes. Visual and verbal 

elements should be considered as contributing to an integrated text. They refer to the spatial 

composition of a text as an overarching code whose rules and meanings provide the multimodal text 

with the logic of its integration and discuss composition in terms of three interrelated systems: 

information value, salience, and framing. Information value refers to the placement of elements in a 

composition that endows them with the specific informational values attached to the various zones of 

the image: left and right, top and bottom, centre and margin.  

 

However, the texts in Data 1, 5, and 7 have low modality because the audience’s real world is not 

depicted in the narratives. Thus, the texts communicate in a distant and impersonal fashion which 

does not guarantee representational meaning. The use of colours in a multimodal text involving 

image and linguistic information represents a particular mood or feeling which, if ignored, can 

ultimately affect the coherence of the text as is the case with some FRSC texts. It is not clear 



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67                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

whether the presence of linguistic messages in mixed colours was a matter of choice or oversight by 

the producers of FRSC texts.  The fact of the matter is that colours in a multimodal text have 

meanings; thus, a conscious thought should be applied in the choice of colours so that there are no 

disparities in the projected meaning of the text.  It is clear that attaching meaning to colour is a 

Western tradition, and interpreting the symbolic meanings behind the choice of certain colours 

requires a Western schema which may not be there in the target audience.   

 

Summary of Findings 

The main purpose of the study was to analyse textual and visual messages on road safety awareness in 

FRSC to establish their correlation, and how meaning is conveyed.  The majority of the drivers agreed 

that the essence of road traffic signs is too safely guide road users.The findings of this study also 

indicate that semiotic modes in FRSC texts are generally incoherent to the drivers due to the level of 

their knowledge. This is due to the use of abstract and ambiguous modes; use of complex and 

misplacement of compositional elements; and semantic overload. This study is relevant to scholarship 

becauseit will provide valuable insight into the kinds of texts produced for road safety awareness and 

how road safety information is perceived by a motorist.Also, the findings of the study will be 

significant to all the regulatory stakeholders in the government such as the policymakers, Federal 

Road Safety Commission, police and the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO), because it will make 

their minds to be thorough at redesigning some sign where necessary to ensure that the signs are 

properly understood by road users. 

 

Conclusion  

Based on the findings of this study, it has become apparent that meanings in FRSC road safety 

campaign materials are not properly enacted. This is due to the use of incoherently packaged 

semiotic resources. It has been established that, in most instances, both the graphic and visual modes 

communicate messages which are unclear and ambiguous. Therefore, the likelihood of 

misinterpreting the intended messages by the drivers who are largely FSLC and WASSEC holders is 

very high.  To construct result-oriented publicity materials, an effective communication model is 

needed. The model should include properly designed campaign materials in which the semiotic 

resources coherently project the intended messages to different categories of drivers with different 

educational background. This will drastically reduce the occurrence of road accidents in the study 

area. 

 

Recommendations  

In line with the findings of the study, the following recommendations were drawn: 

1. There is the need for the FRSC to employ the services of linguistic and semiotic experts that 

will repackage the road safety awareness texts effectively. This is based on the fact that most 

of the road signs contained in the FRSC brochure are semiotically incoherent and inefficient.  

2. There is an urgent need to deploy the services of experienced semiotic and linguistic experts 

to explore avenues of crafting all the road signs in the local dialects in Nigeria to 

accommodate drivers who have a low level of awareness and education. 

3. The use of Pidgin English should also be utilized as a medium of spreading road traffic 

awareness texts because it is a language that is widely spoken mostly among the middle and 

lower class of motorist in the Nigerian society. 

4. There is a need for FRSC toembark on efficient advocacy programs to re-educate and re-

enlighten the numerous road users in the country. They should also ensure that motorist who 

has thoroughly understood the road signs are allowed to drive on the road. To achieve this, 

traffic signs should be taught in driving schools, motor parks and markets.  

5. The law enforcement agents should carry out their duties and responsibilities with trust and 

integrity to reduce the carnages and destructions that are recorded daily on Nigerian roads.  

6. There should be media advocacy that raises the level of consciousness of the road users 

especially through the use of local language of the people. Federal Road Service Commission 

(FRSC) should show commitment and dedication to duties by taking traffic campaigns to 

motor parks and markets.  

 



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68                           Ezeifeka & Ogbogu 

Works Cited 

Akpan, U. et al. The Communicativeness of Road Traffic Signs In Uyo, Akwa Ibom State Of Nigeria. 

2015. 

Eggins, S. An Introduction to systemic functional linguistics. (2nd edition). New York: Continuum, 

2004. 

Federal Road Safety Commission. Nigeria highway code. Detail works. Nigeria. 2016. 

Iyorza, S. Mass Media and Communication Technique. Calabar: University of Press. 2008. 

Makinde, Opeyemi Oluyemisi, Opeyemi, David. Understanding of Traffic Signs by Drivers – A Case 

of Akure City, Ondo State, Nigeria. ARPN Journal of Science and Technology, VOL. 2, NO. 7. 

2012. 

Peirce, C. S. Collected Writings (8 Vols.). (Ed. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss & Arthur W Burks). 

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1958. 

Silverstein, Michael. Shifters, Linguistic Categories and Cultural Description. Albuquerque: 

University of New Mexico Press. 1976. 

Wertheimer, M. Productive thinking. (Enlarged Ed.). New York: Harper & Row. 1959. 

 

Appendix 

 

                                                                                                   

                                                                                  
 

                                

                                                                                                        

                                                                                                        
 

                                                                                                                

 
                                                                                                              

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Silverstein

