The NRSA has challenged the British Daily Mail’s report on deadliest roads in Africa
• The NRSA has issued a rejoinder to challenge a British Daily Mail report that said the deadliest road in Africa is the Accra-Cape Coast road
• The NRSA says this information is misleading
• It stated that available data rather put the N1 Highway as the deadliest in the country
The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has stated that it is misleading to say that the Accra-Cape Coast Highway is Africa’s deadliest road.
Earlier this month, GhanaWeb carried a story with the headline, Accra-Cape Coast highway ranked Africa’s deadliest road, based on a British Daily Mail report out together by researchers commissioned by an insurance company, Budget Direct, to identify the worst routes across different continents.
The report, among other things, stated that “In Africa, the road with the deadliest reputation is the Accra to Cape Coast Road in Ghana, which connects Accra to Cape Coast. Between 2004 and 2011, there were 6,104 accidents and 7,465 casualties.”
But the NRSA has disagreed with this report.
In a rejoinder addressed to GhanaWeb, the Public Relations Officer of the Authority, Pearl Adusu Gyasi, stated that “The national data on road traffic crashes to the Authority updated since 1991 does not mirror the Accra-Cape Coast Road or the Central Region as the most accident-prone road/region in Ghana.”
She continued that, “The national data on Road Traffic Crashes in Ghana (Statistics 2017) identifies the three most dangerous roads in Ghana as;
a. N1 Highway (Aflao to Elubo);
b. N6 Highway (Accra to Kumasi); and
c. N10 Highway (Kumasi through Techiman, Kintampo to Tamale)
The rejoinder further explained that while the Cape Coast road falls within one of these specified zones, the “accident-prone sections are the Accra-Tema Motorway, Achimota Interchange to Mallam Junction to Weija, and Kasoa to Cape Coast.”
Also, the statement challenged the part of the report that stated that “In early 2018, the National Road Safety Commission disclosed that 60% of all accidents in 2017 occurred on that road,’ as an incorrect impression.
“The impression that 60% of all accidents in Ghana for 2017 occurred on that road is incorrect. Instead, the fact is that the Accra-Cape Coast section of routes in the Central Region (Kasoa-Cape Coast) accounted for about 60% of all accidents in the Central Region (and not Ghana) for the year 2017.
It is by this information, stating that the research by the British Daily Mail is inaccurate and misleading.