By D.I. Laary
Accra, Feb. 16, GNA – Legal Resources Centre (LRC) Ghana has called for stronger enforcement of road safety reforms, cautioning that rampant speeding is undermining national productivity and driving up fatalities, especially among the active labour force and children.
The Centre says road crashes cost Ghana as much as 5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), reinforcing the need for decisive enforcement and safer road design.
Also, by December 2025, 2,949 people had died on Ghana’s roads, an 18.2 per cent surge in fatalities, with excessive speeding causing more than 60 per cent of crashes and striking hardest at the nation’s most productive generations.
By the final day of December 2025, 2,949 chairs sat empty at Ghanaian dinner tables, a figure representing what safety officials describe as a devastating rise in deaths even as reported crashes grew by 9.3 per cent.
Speaking in an interview with the GNA, Mr Enock Jengre, a lawyer and programmes officer at the LRC, said the disproportionate leap in fatalities revealed a chilling truth: “Ghana’s roads have become more lethal because vehicles are moving at speeds the human body simply cannot survive.”
New provisional data from the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) indicate that excessive speeding accounts for more than 60 per cent of collisions nationwide.
Mr Jengre, described the crisis not as a collection of statistics but as a “public health emergency” that disproportionately claims individuals aged 18 to 55, stripping families of breadwinners and the nation of its future.
The heavy toll of private and commercial speed remains a central concern, he said.
Although motorcycles often dominate debates on road safety, data from 2025 show that private and commercial vehicles combined accounted for 73.7 per cent of all vehicles involved in crashes.
Involvement of commercial vehicles, including buses and minibuses, rose by 6.4 per cent, and on high‑speed arterial roads these vehicles often face intense pressure to meet schedules, leading to what safety officers describe as “racing” and high‑impact collisions.
Private vehicles accounted for 40.4 per cent of all those involved, with earlier assessments finding that 71 per cent of private vehicles exceeded posted speed limits, particularly on weekends when speeding is twice as frequent as on weekdays.
Nearly three‑quarters of these tragedies are concentrated in the Ashanti, Greater Accra, and Eastern regions, highlighting what officials say is a critical failure of speed management in the country’s busiest urban and inter‑city corridors.
Mr Jengre described the economic toll as staggering, estimating that preventable road deaths consume between 3 and 5 per cent of Ghana’s GDP (gross domestic product).
“We are losing at least eight people every single day,” he said, urging a transition to a “Safe System” approach where road design and law enforcement work together to forgive human error.
He appealed to the concept of solutions journalism, arguing that the issue is addressable through top‑notch, evidence‑based interventions rather than relying on simply “posting signs” all the time.
He pointed to reforms that could shift the trajectory of Ghana’s road safety crisis, highlighting a move toward Automated Speed Enforcement, as manual policing is often inconsistent and prone to human limitations.
He said global best practice showed that automated systems such as fixed cameras and point‑to‑point average speed systems, known locally as Traffictech and being prepared for rollout by the Ghana Police Service, can reduce fatal and injury crashes by up to 37 per cent.
With the amendment to the Road Traffic Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2180) expected to become law after the mandatory 21 sittings of Parliament, Mr Jengre said the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Department must strictly operationalise and enforce Traffictech to create a perception of “anywhere, anytime” enforcement.
He noted that fines must be certain, unavoidable and swift to be a true deterrent, emphasising the need to adopt “self-enforcing” road designs.
A “self‑explaining road” uses physical cues to compel safe speeds and reduces the need for constant police presence.
Instead of high-speed “stroads” that encourage dangerous behaviour, Jengre recommended retrofitting urban main roads with vertical deflections, such as speed humps or raised platforms, and horizontal deflections, such as chicanes and narrower lanes.
He noted that in São Paulo, Brazil, lowering speeds on major arterials reduced congestion by 10 per cent while saving lives, and urged the need for legislative change and institutional unification.
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The government suspended implementation of the National Roads Authority Act in 2025 due to concerns, even though the Act is intended to merge the Ghana Highways Authority, the Department of Urban Roads and Feeder Roads into a single, accountable roadsafety body.
Mr Jengre argued that fragmented responsibilities enabled “responsibility shifting” among agencies and recommended that Parliament revived and pass the Act to prioritise safety over traffic flow.
He also recommended strengthening fleet and technology standards, and state and private sector players should mandate Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) or speed limiters for all commercial and government vehicle fleets.
Data indicates that ISA alone has the potential to reduce serious crashes by up to 50 per cent.
As Ghana looks toward 2026, officials warn that the 2025 statistics serve as a final and urgent warning.
“You can be healthy, eat right, and exercise, but it takes only one bad decision on the road to end a life,” Denis Yeribu, programme manager for the National Road Safety Authority, said.
He said the solution was in a culture of responsibility supported by a system that refused to accept death as the price of mobility.
LRC is a Ghanaian nonprofit organisation that promotes human rights, legal advocacy and justice sector reforms through research, public education and policy engagement.
GNA
Edited by George-Ramsey Benamba