The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) disclosed this on Wednesday in Accra during a media engagement on the role of advocacy in promoting road safety.

Mr Dennis Yeribu, Principal Planning Manager at the NRSA, reported that from January to June 2025, Ghana recorded 7,289 road crashes involving 12,354 vehicles, resulting in 1,504 deaths and 8,364 injuries, with 1,301 pedestrians knocked down.

He noted that the 1,504 lives lost within six months exceeded Ghana's total confirmed COVID-19 fatalities of 1,462 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Mr. Yeribu indicated that the last quarter of the year was the deadliest, with crashes peaking from Friday to Sunday and between 1800 and 2000 hours, while Wednesdays and early morning hours registered fewer incidents.
He said road crash figures had consistently risen from 1991 to 2024, with data from 2018 to 2022 showing that 33 per cent of fatalities were pedestrians, 30 per cent involved motorcycle and tricycle riders, 16 per cent were bus and minibus passengers, and 11 per cent were car occupants.

Mr. Yeribu pointed out that 65.7 per cent of deaths involved individuals aged 18 to 45.

"If we are losing 65 per cent of our people between the ages of 18 and 45 as those who are contributing to our casualties, then we know that our manpower is being lost-and as a nation, it is a concern for us," he said.

Mr. Yeribu attributed the increase in crashes to inexperience, distraction, overspeeding, improper overtaking, fatigue, loss of vehicle control, tailgating, lack of signalling, and improper turns.

He indicated that over 90 per cent of collisions were due to human error and that reducing such errors would drastically cut crash rates.

Mr. Yeribu said NRSA interventions included joint education and enforcement, publicity campaigns, outreach programmes, inspections, and standard enforcement.

He emphasised that improved education, compliance, collaboration, infrastructure, and funding were critical in reducing crash statistics.

"When we are able to come together as stakeholders in the Road Safety space or ecosystem, we will be able to bring down the numbers which are unfortunately going higher," he noted.

Mrs Pearl Adusu Sateckla, Public Relations Officer at the NRSA, urged the media to prioritise daily coverage of road safety issues to help reverse the trend.