A road safety and mobility expert has urged the Ministry of Roads and Highways to prioritise strict access control and enforced land governance in the engineering of the upcoming Accra-Kumasi Expressway to avoid repeating the high crash rates recorded on the existing highway corridor.
In a chat with The Ghanaian Times on the government’s decision to ring-fence $2 billion at the Bank of Ghana for the 199-kilometre, six-lane dual carriage project, Mr Osei Kufuor, Executive Director of the Road Lines Foundation, stated that structural design flaws and unchecked roadside settlements on the current route remain major drivers of fatal road traffic crashes.
Data from the National Road Safety Authority indicates that road crashes claimed 2,673 lives between January and November 2025, representing an 18.5 per cent increase compared to the previous year, while January 2026 recorded 383 fatalities.
The Ashanti, Eastern, and Greater Accra regions accounted for the highest proportion of these casualties.
Over a full reporting year, more than 14,700 crashes involving nearly 25,000 vehicles resulted in roughly 2,950 deaths, with males representing nearly 80 per cent of victims.
According to Mr Kufuor, fatal collisions on the existing corridor, including major crashes near Suhum, Nsawam, and Paradise Restaurant, are rooted in incomplete dualisation and uncontrolled commercial encroachments.
He noted that informal junctions, fuel stations, market stalls, and residential expansion right up to the carriageway have created hazardous conflict points on a road never engineered for mixed-use access.
To ensure long-term safety on the new expressway, the Road Lines Foundation emphasized the total elimination of direct entry points from adjoining lands, requiring all local traffic to enter via grade-separated interchanges, alongside continuous physical median barriers to prevent head-on crashes.
The foundation also recommended constructing dedicated parallel service roads for slow-moving traffic, motorcycles, and pedestrians, complemented by paved shoulders, rumble strips, reflective delineators, truck lay-bys, and rest areas.
On land governance, Mr Kufuor urged authorities to fence and gazette a 50-meter right-of-way buffer on both sides of the corridor, backed by drone and satellite monitoring via a joint enforcement protocol involving the Ghana Highway Authority, Lands Commission, and local district assemblies.
He added that proactive construction of designated service stations, markets, and transport hubs at interchanges is essential to prevent informal trading on road shoulders.
Finally, the Expert called for mandatory independent road safety audits during the design, pre-opening, and post-opening phases, coupled with camera-enforced speed limits and automated crash data tracking, stressing that concrete and asphalt alone will not eliminate fatalities unless road safety is integrated into the engineering and administrative framework from the outset.
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE, KUMASI
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