A Total of 1,634 persons lost their lives through road crashes last year while 9,186 victims were injured.
The deaths comprise 1,248 males and 386 females.
The figures are a reduction in 2014’s data, where 1,856 persons died through 13,133 cases.
Compared to the situation in the same period in the year 2014, there were reductions in cases reported and vehicles involved in road traffic crashes by 17.3% and 17.02% respectively.
Again, there were reductions in the number of deaths and injuries by 12% and 19% in 2015 over that of the figures recorded in 2014.
A further breakdown of the data indicated that out of the males who died, 159 were below 18 years while 1,089 were above 18 years.
For the females, 126 were below 18 years and 260 were above 18 years.
Deaths – 1,634
The regional breakdown of deaths is Accra – 305; Brong Ahafo – 233; Eastern – 229; Western – 167; Ashanti – 163; Central – 134; North – 115; Volta – 114; Upper East – 64; Upper West – 60; and Tema – 50.
Injured – 9,186
For injuries, the breakdown is as follows: Accra - 2,171; Eastern – 1,955; Ashanti – 926; Brong Ahafo – 868; Central – 811; Western – 691; Volta – 576; Northern -463; Tema – 363; Upper East – 183; and Upper West – 179.
Pedestrian knockdowns – 2,121
The statistics for regional breakdown for pedestrian knockdowns are Accra – 883; Eastern – 271; Ashanti – 198; Tema – 180; Central – 141; Volta – 128; Western – 121; Brong Ahafo – 107; Volta – 54; Upper East – 21; and Upper West – 17.
Vehicles involved – 16,598
The regional breakdown for vehicles involved in accidents is as follows: Accra – 7,125; Tema – 1,967; Eastern – 1,766; Ashanti – 1,548; Central – 1,022; Western – 925; Brong Ahafo – 895; Volta – 756; North – 414; Upper East – 298; and Upper West – 242.
The types of vehicles involved are 7,162 commercial vehicles; 7,507 private vehicles; and 2,298 motor cycles.
Ing. Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, Executive Director of NRSC, said the achievements were made possible as a result of the excellent collaboration between the NRSC and its stakeholders in addressing the core challenges within the road safety environment through education, engineering, enforcement and emergency response interventions.
“We commend our partners and stakeholders for the excellent collaboration that made this happen,” she added.
In the last three years, Ghana has been consistent with reducing the cases of crashes and casualties. We need to remain focused and strategic in our approach and work harder to sustain the reducing trend towards achieving the national targets of not more than 830 deaths and 3,000 seriously injured on our roads by the year 2020 under the Global Decade of Action for Road Safety.
Ing. Mrs Obiri-Yeboah said the commission would this year lead the implementation of the 2015-2017 National Road Safety Action Plans (NRSAP), developed within the framework of the National Road Safety Strategy III 2011-2020. Our focus for the year will be on pedestrian deaths and injuries.
She noted that pedestrians represent the most vulnerable road user class in Ghana.
According to her, an average of 38% of all road traffic-related deaths are pedestrian related.
She stated that the commission would this year co-ordinate efforts towards reducing pedestrian vulnerabilities in road traffic through education and enforcement for positive road use behaviour and strongly advocate for safe physical/engineering measures for pedestrians.
“The commission has observed also that political activities have impacted our road safety record in previous election years.
“We shall engage political parties as a major stakeholder on the need to mainstream global best road safety practices in their campaign programmes and activities.
“We wish to express gratitude to all our stakeholders and partners for their continuous contribution to road safety improvement and urge that we continue to find avenues to deepen our collaboration in order that we can reach our targets for 2016,” she added.
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