More than 114 persons have been killed on the country’s roadways in accidents so far for 2025. The majority of road deaths involve motorcycles.

According to the Traffic Chief, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mahendra Singh, there has been a 12% reduction in all categories of accidents, when compared to 2024.

However, since the presentation of his report during the launch of Christmas Policing 2025 on Friday, there has been at least one other deadly accident.

According to the Traffic Chief, speeding remains the primary reason for fatal accidents, while motorcyclists account for the largest number of victims.

“Speeding alone has accounted for at least 85 of our fatal accidents for 2025. Eighteen of those fatal accidents were where a single vehicle collided with bridges, medians and or, as a result of breaches of traffic light signals. The vulnerable classes – motorcyclists are at the top of the list. Why? For dangerous driving, for paying no heed to safety, not even a safety helmet in your possession, much less wearing one. That is followed by pedestrians. Forty-nine motorcyclists for this year would have died on the roadways, 25 pedestrians, 15 drivers, 7 occupants of a motor vehicle, 8 pedal cyclists, and 10 pillion riders,” Senior Superintendent Singh detailed.

He further explained that private motor cars were involved in deadly accidents in 52 occasions, while motor lorries were involved in 27 incidents. Additionally, there were 11 deadly motorcycle accidents, two minibus accidents, and four involving hire cars.

However, using 2023 as the base year, the Traffic Chief reported that there was significant reduction in all categories of accidents to date, adding that the reduction was as a result of a number of factors including smart traffic management, and the deployment of 527 traffic ranks across the country.

“Present day we are experiencing a reduction of 12 percent of all categories of accidents when compared to last year. If you look carefully at 2024, how did we manage to arrive at 117 fatal accidents compared to 2023, again, it wasn’t by chance – pure commitment, [and] expanded collaboration to include more in the multi sectoral stakeholder arrangement,” he said.

He said damage and minor accidents account for the largest number of accidents. These accidents account for more than 70% of all accidents, and did not require any form of responses or medical intervention, thereby not placing any strain on the health sector.

He said number of vehicles on the country’s roads have almost tripled since 2020 compared to the period 2015-2019, at a time when there is a “great imbalance” between the number of road users and the traffic ranks.

According to him, a single traffic rank services almost 2,000 road users daily, creating challenges as a relate to enforcement, and directional duties.

He said with the increase in the number of vehicles on the roads and the ongoing construction, there is need for a more efficient traffic management including the deployment of ranks.

However, he noted that the police are using technology, such as body-cams and CCTV systems to improve traffic management and respond to accidents.

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