Road crashes killed 2,949 in Ghana in 2025, the highest in 35 years — Road Safety Authority

Ghana recorded 2,949 reported road crash fatalities in 2025, the highest in 35 years.

This also brings the total number of people killed on the road to 63,599 since 1991.

The 2025 deaths marked Ghana’s highest-ever reported road fatality cases in a single year, a situation the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) said was a wake-up call for stronger stakeholder collaboration to stem the tide.

According to the latest road traffic crash (RTC) statistics released by NRSA, the deaths comprised 2,352 males (80 per cent) and 597 females (20 per cent), indicating that for every four males that died through road crashes, a female died.

When Graphic Online's Timothy Ngenbe contacted the NRSA to understand the figures, the Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the authority, Alexander Ayatah, said the hike in all the road crash indicators was largely attributable to the inactivity of the NRSA last year because of logistical constraints.

Statistics

The statistics indicate that the deaths occurred from 14,743 road traffic crashes in 2025.

The crashes, which resulted in 16,714 injuries, involved 24,938 vehicles of all categories — private, commercial, and motorbikes.

Compared with the preceding year (2024), the statistics showed that for 2025, all the indicators, including crashes, injuries and deaths (CIDs), recorded significant increments.

Persons killed in road crashes recorded the highest increment of 18.2 per cent in 2025 from 2,494 in 2024.

Reported road crash cases increased by 9.3 per cent from 13,489 in 2024, while vehicles involved in the crashes rose by 8.5 per cent in 2025.

The 2025 figures further showed that persons who suffered injuries increased by 7.1 per cent from 15,607 in 2024, with pedestrian knockdowns also inching up by 7.0 per cent to 2,561.

In terms of the age distribution, the figures showed that 328 persons killed, representing 11 per cent, were below the age of 18 years, while 2,621 (89 per cent) were reported to have been adults (above 18 years).

What the statistics indicate is that for every seven adults (above 18-years) killed, a child (below 18-years) was killed.

This further reveals a relatively high road traffic death ratio (7:1) for adults than for children within the period. 

Vehicle category

A further look at the statistics showed that 10,087 private vehicles were involved in the crashes, representing 41 per cent, followed by 8,303 commercial vehicles (33 per cent), and 6,548 motorcycles (26 per cent).

Compared with 2024, the latest figures showed that the proportions of all the vehicle types involved in crashes — commercial vehicles, private vehicles and motorbikes — increased by 6.4 per cent, 4.1 per cent and 19.4 per cent respectively.

A further disaggregation of the figures revealed that motorbikes with only two wheels constituted 72 per cent of cycles involved in crashes, while tricycles contributed 25 per cent.

Also, bicycles and handcarts constituted two per cent and one per cent respectively.

Regional distribution
In terms of the regional distribution of the crashes and deaths, the Greater Accra Region contributed the most to crashes, with 4,533 crashes.

However, the region was third in terms of fatalities, with 420 deaths.

The Ashanti Region followed with 4,430 crashes (second) and 692 deaths (first), while the Eastern Region came third with 2,195 crashes and 649 fatalities.

Compared with the 2024 figures, it was observed that the Eastern and Ashanti regions recorded hikes in deaths by 163 deaths (33.5 per cent) and 146 deaths (10.5 per cent) respectively.

Similarly, the Greater Accra Region recorded an increase of 39 deaths, representing 10.2 per cent.

The figures showed that although Greater Accra experienced more than double the number of crashes recorded in the Eastern Region in the same period, the Eastern Region still surpassed Greater Accra in terms of deaths.

From the data, for every 100 crashes, the Eastern Region recorded 28 deaths, as against 10 deaths for the Greater Accra Region for the same number of crashes.

Based on that scenario, the NRSA concluded that the Ashanti, Eastern and Greater Accra regions were the critical regions for crashes, injuries and deaths. 

Reality check

“The NRSA did not have resources last year to embark on road safety campaigns, so some of our regional offices were virtually closed down.

The policymakers need to attach more importance to issues of road safety.

Almost 3,000 people got killed in one year on our roads, and these are even reported cases; many cases are unreported.

If we do not do anything about funding the NRSA this year, the figures will get worse,” the Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the authority said.

Mr Alexander Ayatah added that with the legalisation of motorcycles for commercial use, the fatalities could skyrocket if drastic enforcement and regulation were not prioritised.

Context

In 2021, the Daily Graphic did a comprehensive analysis of road traffic crash statistics from the NRSA, revealing that between 1991 and 2020, a total of 50,583 persons died from 308,183 reported road crashes in the country.

The statistics further showed that 414,653 people suffered varying degrees of injury, with many of them becoming permanently disabled.