Road Crashes: Death toll for February 2024 up by 30 per cent.

Road Crashes: Death toll for February 2024 up by 30 per cent. The death toll from road crashes in February 2024 was up by 30 per cent as compared to February 2023, a National Road Traffic Crashes and Casualties report, has said.  

The report captured 195 deaths for February 2024 as against 150 deaths recorded in February 2023.

The distribution of road traffic fatalities by sex indicated that in February 2024, a total of 155 males (representing 79 per cent) and 40 females (representing 21 per cent), died through road crashes.

The data showed a ratio of 1:4, thus, for every one female who died through road crashes, four males also died.

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

In the month of February 2024, some 26 persons (representing 13 per cent) killed were below 18 years whilst 169 persons (representing 87 per cent) were adults (above) 18 years.

The data indicate that for every eight adults (above 18 years) killed, a child (below 18 years) was also killed through road crashes, revealing a relatively high road traffic death ratio (8:1) for adults than for children within the period.

The report said the situation was partly due to the high risk of exposure of adults to traffic incidences as compared to children.

A total of 1,118 crashes were reported during the period, involving 1,919 vehicles and 164 pedestrian knock downs.

The report classified 51 per cent (576) of the crashes recorded in February 2024 as minor, 35 per cent (388) as serious and 14 per cent (154) as fatal.

Minor crashes are crashes which have resulted in the minor injury of at least one person/victim leading to hospitalisation of less than 24 hours or no injuries at all.

Serious crashes involve serious injuries inflicted on at least one person/victim of a crash leading to hospitalisation of at least 24 hours.

Fatal crashes are crashes which have resulted in the death of at least one person/victim within 30 days of the crash.

The number of crashes for February 2024 compared to that of February 2023 (1,101 cases), indicates a 1.54 per cent increase.

Private vehicles-853, constituted the largest proportion of vehicles involved in crashes representing 44.5 per cent, followed by commercial vehicles-618, with 32.2 per cent and motorcycles-448, with the least proportion of 23.4 per cent.

Private vehicles recorded a five per cent decrease in the numbers involved in crashes in February 2024 as compared to February 2023.

However, commercial vehicles and motorcycles crash involvement increased by 11 per cent and 8.2 per cent respectively in February 2024 when compared to February 2023.

The Greater Accra Region with 411 crashes contributed the most to crashes.

The Ashanti and Eastern regions came second and third in road crash contributions with 262 and 141 crashes respectively.

Source: GNA