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The Ghana Insurers Association (GIA), has called for stiffer penalties as statistics show that the impact of deaths caused by motor accidents was estimated at 2 percent of the country’s GDP.

Mr Kingsley Kwesi Kwabahson, GIA CEO, who made the call recently in Accra, said the association remained concerned about the staggering statistics on deaths and severe injuries associated with accidents through reckless driving on the roads, reported Ghanaweb.

He said the statistics on road crashes issued by the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), showed that there were 10,808 crashes and 2,073 fatalities in 2019, which represented an increase of 9.8 percent and 2.6 percent respectively in crashes and fatalities over 2018.

He said that pedestrians formed the road user class with the highest number of deaths and severe injuries from motor accidents, accounting for 36.7 percent of the total number of road accident victims, followed by motorcyclists at 28 percent, and bus passengers at 14.4 percent

The Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service also estimated that there had been a total of 4,009 traffic accidents with 771 deaths in the first quarter of 2021.