The Accra Road Safety 2021 Report has ranked the George Walker Bush Highway stretch of the National Road One (N1) as the riskiest in Accra.
The stretch is the extension from the Tema-Accra Motorway at Tetteh Quarshie Interchange to Mallam Junction.
As part of a global road safety initiative, the report was put together through the collaborative efforts of the National Road Safety Authority, the Ghana Police Service, and the Accra Metropolitan Authority with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Vital Strategies and the Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit.
It was launched by Mrs Elizabeth Kwatsoe Sackey, the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive at the end of a three-day Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety Regional Meeting for Africa in Accra on Friday, January 20, 2023.
It was launched to help implement context-specific and evidence-based interventions to minimise road traffic crashes, deaths, and injuries in the metropolis.
The report also cited the Opeibia, Lapaz, North Dzorwulu, Kawukudi and Hansonic intersections as the top five fatal crash intersections in the capital.
It also named distances between the Apenkwa overhead and Dimples Roundabout, Akweteyman to Lapaz, the Airport Junction to North Dzorwulu intersection, the Abeka Junction to Total Station (J.A. Kufuor Avenue), and the Hansonic to Kaneshie First Light as the top five fatal crash corridors in the city.
Overall, speeding increased from 50 per cent in 2021 to 51 per cent in 2022, indicating that speeding remains the main risk factor for severe road crashes.
“Motorcycles top the list of vehicles observed to be speeding over the posted limit. This could be attributed to high patronization of motorcycles for private and commercial purposes,” the findings of the report revealed.
It said 99 persons out of the 123 people who died from road accidents in Accra in 2021 were vulnerable road users, constituting 80 per cent of the road traffic deaths in 2021.
Vulnerable road users are persons not in any vehicle, including pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists, the report pointed out.
Meanwhile, the number of reported fatalities dropped by 10 per cent from 2020 to 2021.
Overall crashes increased by two per cent, from 1,774 to 1,808 in the same period.
The study also revealed that more than half of the reported fatalities in 2021 occurred on weekends (Friday to Saturday), representing 53 per cent of the total figure.
The Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive said although the city had recorded a slight decrease in deaths, more concerted effort was needed to ensure the city’s roads were safe for all users.