Rising road accident trends in Ghana: a call for targeted action

Between January and June 2025, Ghana recorded 7,289 road traffic crashes involving 12,354 vehicles, which resulted in 1,504 deaths and more than 8,300 injuries. On average, eight lives are lost every day on the country’s roads, according to the National Road Safety Authority. These figures underscore a growing national emergency that persists in threatening lives and livelihoods despite years of intervention.

At the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety Ghana partners meeting in Accra, stakeholders, including the National Road Safety Authority, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, and officials from Bloomberg, reviewed the latest data and deliberated on strategies to address the crisis.

The report presented revealed that, after two consecutive years of decline, road traffic fatalities increased by 13% in 2024. Pedestrian deaths remain troublingly high, while motorcyclists accounted for 25 percent of all road deaths—a reflection of their growing presence and vulnerability on Ghana’s roads.

There was, however, some encouraging news. Speeding incidents dropped by 19 percent between February and August 2025, a trend linked to enhanced enforcement. Yet, challenges remain: SUVs and pick-up trucks were found to be responsible for nearly half of pedestrian deaths in Kumasi, pointing to the need for targeted action.

Contributing to the discussions, the Mayor of Kumasi, Hon. Richard Ofori Boadi, stressed that stricter enforcement of laws must be at the center of Ghana’s road safety efforts. He noted that more attention would be given to how and where officers are deployed, particularly at night and during weekends when drivers often exploit the absence of law enforcement. “The tendency for one to abuse the space when there are no law enforcement officers, especially over the weekend and at night, would let them speed or ride motorcycles in an unregulated manner. And these are where we have the fatalities which are associated with crashes,” he said.

He further added that consistent visibility of officers is key to changing driver behavior. “When people know that there are officers on the road, they think twice before speeding, overloading, or ignoring traffic rules. But once the system looks free, they take advantage, and that is when lives are lost. We cannot continue to allow lawlessness to dominate our roads,” the Mayor stated. He urged that enforcement should go hand in hand with public education so that discipline becomes a culture, not just a reaction to police presence.

Research Analyst at Bloomberg Philanthropies, Rebecca Bavinger, commended the Metropolitan assemblies for their report, noting its importance in tackling Ghana’s growing road safety challenges.

“There are about 3000 deaths that occur in Ghana every year that are reported, and that is an underestimate. So what we’re trying to do is first strengthen the data, as well as target the high-risk roads to reduce the fatalities on those high-risk roads by doing speed management, and we can reduce fatalities and injuries. So the importance of today is launching these data reports, which include findings of where the speeding rates are the highest, which roads, so that we can target interventions there,” she started.

The meeting underscored that while progress in some areas is evident, Ghana’s road safety challenge remains far from resolved. Stronger enforcement, safer pedestrian infrastructure, targeted education for motorcyclists, and data-driven interventions were highlighted as essential steps toward reversing the deadly trend.

By: Bawa Musah

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