One person died and 14 others were injured on Wednesday evening, August 12, when a truck collided head-on with a passenger bus near Bunso on the Accra-Kumasi Highway. The crash is the latest in a run of fatal accidents that has struck Ghana’s busiest road corridor in recent weeks, reviving pressure on authorities to address long-standing safety concerns on the route.
What happened at Bunso
The collision occurred near the Paradise Restaurant at Bunso in the Eastern Region, a stretch of the Accra-Kumasi Highway well known to regular travellers on the route. According to accounts from the Ghana National Fire Service, a MAN Diesel truck heading toward Accra swerved into the opposite lane while trying to give way to an oncoming Toyota Vitz, and struck a Toyota Hiace minibus travelling in the other direction.
The impact left the Hiace badly damaged, with passengers trapped inside. One person died, while 14 others sustained injuries and were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Fire crews from the Bunso Fire Station responded to the scene, working to free trapped occupants, administer first aid, and retrieve belongings from the wreckage before clearing the highway to restore traffic flow.
Police in the Eastern Region confirmed the incident and said investigations into the exact circumstances of the crash were ongoing. As with many crashes on this corridor, the exact identities of those killed and injured had not been fully released at the time of reporting.
A wider pattern of highway crashes
The Bunso crash did not happen in isolation. Over the past two weeks alone, Ghana’s major highways have recorded a string of serious accidents that have left road safety advocates and commuters alike increasingly uneasy about travel on intercity routes.
- July 30, Frimpongso (Accra-Kumasi Highway): A Kia VIP Grandbird bus rear-ended a stationary, broken-down MAN diesel truck while attempting to overtake without sufficient visibility of the parked vehicle. One person died and four others were injured.
- August 3, Birimso Bridge (Accra-Kumasi Highway): A multi-vehicle crash involving an STC intercity coach, a fuel tanker, a Mitsubishi pickup and a Kia Sorento triggered a fire that gutted several of the vehicles. Two people died, with others rescued and treated for injuries.
- August 6, Abor Junction (Mankessim-Accra Highway): A Toyota Voxy crashed in the early hours of the morning, killing two people, one man and one woman, and injuring seven others. The driver escaped unhurt, and the cause of the crash had not been determined at the time, according to a Citi Newsroom report.
- August 13, Ofankor Barrier (Accra-Kumasi Highway, Accra): A day after the Bunso crash, a much larger multi-vehicle pile-up involving two tipper trucks, two Sprinter buses, two saloon cars and a motorised tricycle claimed at least 11 lives, with the toll later reported by some outlets to have risen to 12, and more than a dozen people hospitalised. The National Road Safety Authority said it was examining whether an unauthorised tricycle, or “aboboyaa,” contributed to the crash.
Taken together, the crashes span three different areas and several different causes, dangerous overtaking, a vehicle straying into oncoming traffic, and a multi-vehicle pile-up, but they share a common thread: all occurred on stretches of highway that safety officials and residents have flagged as accident-prone for years.
Road safety response and calls to action
Following the Ofankor Barrier crash, Felix Owusu, Senior Planning Manager at the National Road Safety Authority’s Greater Accra Regional Office, said the authority would work with other stakeholders to establish whether the recurring accidents at that location stemmed from driver behaviour, human error, or an engineering problem with the road itself. “We will make sure the appropriate measures are put in place to address it,” Owusu said, also urging motorists to exercise extra caution as the festive season approaches.
The NRSA’s own data underlines the scale of the challenge. The authority’s most recent report covering the first four months of 2026 recorded 1,009 road deaths nationwide, only marginally down from 1,011 deaths over the same period in 2025, even as the number of crashes and injuries both rose year-on-year. The Eastern Region, where Bunso sits, was among the hardest-hit areas in that report.
The Ghana Police Service’s Motor Traffic and Transport Department has also repeatedly flagged the scale of the problem. Chief Superintendent Alexander Kwaku Obeng, the department’s Director of Education, Research and Training, has said Ghana’s road safety situation “calls for all hands on deck,” warning that current enforcement measures have not kept pace with the rising number of crashes on the country’s roads.
Long-discussed infrastructure fixes for the Accra-Kumasi Highway, including a planned six-lane expressway, remain under way but incomplete; large portions of the route still funnel opposing traffic onto shared, undivided carriageways. For now, fire service crews, police and hospital staff remain the first line of response each time a crash occurs.
Investigations into the Bunso crash, along with the other recent accidents on the Accra-Kumasi and Mankessim-Accra highways, are continuing. Road safety officials have renewed appeals to drivers to slow down, avoid overtaking on blind stretches, and stay alert on routes that have already claimed too many lives this year.