Some seventeen travelers have lost their lives, with 14 others sustaining injuries, in an accident that occurred on the Offinso-Abofour road in the Ashanti Region on Monday morning.

According to the Offinso Motor Traffic and Transport Department, a Sprinter bus heading towards the northern part of the country collided with a trailer from the opposite direction.

The bodies of the dead have since been deposited at the morgue, with the injured receiving treatment in the hospital.

Speaking to Citi News, the Offinso MTTD Commander, DSP Edmund Nyamekye, said preliminary investigations show that the driver of the trailer may have been dozing off, leading to the collision with the Sprinter bus in the opposite direction.

“There was a head-on collision. Seventeen people are dead, and others are injured, who have all been rushed to the hospital for treatment. The driver of the Sprinter is also dead. He should have stopped somewhere and relax, but he went on to drive, lost control of the vehicle, and run into a ditch.”

Over 1,000 persons are estimated to have lost their lives through road accidents in 2021.

Provisional data compiled by the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) recently, revealed that the number of commuters killed in road traffic crashes for the first nine months of the year 2021 rose by 16.37% compared to the same period last year.

It increased from 1,827 between January and September 2020 to 2,126 in the first nine months of this year.

The data shows that 1,751 males made up of 193 below the ages of 18 and 1,558 who are 18 years and above were killed.

Similarly, 375 females comprising 100 who are 18 years and below as well as 275 aged 18 years and above also died from crashes.