By Isaac Arkoh
Cape Coast, Aug. 13, GNA – More adults and males above 18 years died through road accidents in the Central Region the National Road Safety Authority Regional Road Traffic Crashes and Casualties report from April to June has revealed.
Of the 48 killed during the period, five, representing 10 per cent, were below the age of 18 years whilst 43 representing 90 per cent were people above 18 years killed.
This indicates that for every 16 people, eight adults above 18 years were killed, revealing a relatively high road traffic death ratio of 8:1 for adults than for children within the period.
Mrs Linda Affotey-Annang, the Central Regional Head of the National Road Safety Authority, told the Ghana News Agency, that the situation was due to the high risk of exposure of adults to traffic incidences as compared to children.
For the distribution of fatalities by sex, 40, representing 83 per cent of males and eight, making 17 per cent of females, were killed.
The data reveal an approximate ratio of 1:5, thus, for every female killed, five males were killed, showing a similar trend in past years of higher fatalities for males than for females.
The total road accidents dipped from 288 to 237 over the period with vehicles of all categories – private, commercial, motorbikes/cycles vehicles crashed with 419 casualties, involving 48 deaths and 371 injuries.
Cases reported, vehicles involved, people injured, and people killed decreased by 17.71, 9.93, 9.43 and 40.45 per cent respectively.
On the other hand, pedestrian knockdowns increased by 24.0 per cent from when compared to the first quarter – January to March 2024.
For categories of road traffic crashes categorised under fatal, serious or minor depending on the severity of the crash 51 per cent, representing 120 were minor crashes, 31 per cent representing 73 were serious crashes and the remaining 18 per cent making 44 were fatal crashes.
Also, the month of May recorded the highest number of injuries with 167 injuries, whilst the month of April recorded the least number of injuries with 100 injuries.
Largely, the months showed a decreasing trend in the number of deaths recorded and a decreasing trend in the number of deaths for the same period in 2023.
The rate of decrease for 2024 is approximately 3.0 deaths per month compared to the rate of decrease for 2023 which is 1.5 deaths per month.
Mrs Affotey-Annang repeated the Authority’s resolve to induce positive behavioural change among road users for them to observe and advocate compliance with road traffic regulations.
Also, road users must support the authority and other stakeholders and report traffic infractions as a collective responsibility.
GNA