According to information released by the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), between January and June of 2024, almost 1,237 persons lost their lives in traffic accidents.
Many of these fatalities, according to the NRSA, were caused by drivers who failed to heed traffic signs and overtook other vehicles.
Pearl Adusu Sateckla, Head of Public Relations at the NRSA, described the situation as “worrying.”
“The contributory factor might be as a result of head-on-collision, and head-on-collision is as a result of wrongful overtaking and overspeeding. Research has shown that about 90% of our drivers plying our roads in the country do not adhere to the speed limits in the country.
“When the speed is high, the severity of the crash is so much,” the Head of Public Relations at the NRSA said.
According to an overview of the preliminary national traffic crash and casualty statistics, 6,653 road traffic crashes were registered between January and June of 2024. 11,283 vehicles of all classes—Private, Commercial, Motorcycles, and Cycles—were involved in these collisions, resulting in 8,798 fatalities (1,237 fatalities/deaths and 7,561 injuries).
Between January and June 2024, there were 4%, 4.5%, 3.8%, and 1% fewer knockdowns, although the number of fatalities rose by 13% over the same period in 2023.
In June, there were reported to have been 150 (88%) adult fatalities (over the age of 18) compared to 21 (12%) underage deaths. Similarly, between January and June, 149 people (12%) were reported to have died who were younger than 18 years old, while 1088 people (88%) were recorded to have been older than 18 years old.
This shows that there are comparatively more road traffic deaths (7:1) for adults than for children during the time, with one child under the age of eighteen dying for every seven (7) adults (over the age of eighteen) who die. This is partially because adults are more likely than children to be exposed to traffic incidents.
As to the available data, the Bono Region experienced the greatest percentage increase in collisions, rising by 41.5% between January and June of 2024 in comparison to the same time in 2023. With a fall of 41.2%, the Upper East Region saw the largest percentage decline.
The largest percentage rise was 500% in the Oti Region and 288.9% in the Savannah Region. The number of injuries received over the time decreased by 100% in the Northern Region and by 100% in the Upper West, with the former seeing no change.
When comparing January to June 2024 to the same period in 2023, all indices have mostly decreased, with the exception of persons murdered, which saw an increase of 13%.
It is important to note that there was a notable 11.7% decrease in fatalities in the Greater Accra Region in comparison to 2023.
In contrast, the Ashanti Region saw a rise in deaths (131), accounting for a 67.5% increase over the same period in 2023. The Eastern Region continues to outnumber Greater Accra in terms of fatalities, even though Greater Accra saw more than twice (200%) as many crashes during the previous six months.
According to the analysis, the Greater Accra Region recorded 10 deaths for every 100 crashes, whereas the Eastern Region recorded 27 deaths.
The government should immediately form a committee to look into the whole sequence of events that led to the recent road accidents and release the committee’s report, according to a statement from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Ghana.
