Road Crashes: 174 deaths recorded in January 2024

Some 174 persons lost their lives to road crashes in January 2024, a Road Traffic Crash and Casualty Situation report, has said.

The death toll represents a 3.33 per cent decrease as compared to 180 deaths recorded in January 2023.

The distribution of road traffic fatalities by sex indicates that in January 2024, a total of 146 males (representing 84 per cent) and 28 females (representing 16 per cent), died through road crashes.

The data shows a ratio of 1:5, thus, for every one female who died through road crashes, five males also died.

This shows a similar trend in past years of higher fatalities for males than for females.

A total of 16 persons (representing nine per cent) killed through road crashes in January 2024, were below 18 years whilst 158 (representing 91 per cent) were reported to be adults above 18 years.

The data indicated that for every 10 adults (above 18-years) killed, a child (below 18-years) was killed through road crashes,  revealing a relatively high road traffic death ratio (10:1) for adults than for children within the period.

A total of 1,142 cases were reported during the period, involving 1,991 vehicles and 217 pedestrian knock downs.

Comparing the reported cases for January 2023 to that of January 2023, there has been 0.52 per cent decrease.

Private vehicles-902, constituted the largest proportion of vehicles involved in crashes representing 45.30 per cent, followed by commercial vehicles-654, with 32.85 per cent and motorcycles-435, with the least proportion of 21.85 per cent.

The Greater Accra Region contributed the most to crashes and came third in fatalities (393 crashes; 29 deaths respectively).

This was followed by Ashanti (311 crashes; 39 deaths, with the highest fatalities recorded).

Eastern Region came third in the number of crashes with 156 crashes and second in deaths with 35 deaths.

Source: GNA