RSAI Statement on the LNP First Quarter 2026 Road Traffic Accident Report
Road Safety Action International (RSAI) has reviewed the First Quarter 2026 Road Traffic Accident Report released by the Liberia National Police (LNP), covering the period of January through March 2026. According to the report, 71 lives were lost and 309 injuries were recorded within this three-month period alone. These figures represent not mere statistics, but fathers, mothers, children, and community members whose deaths and disabilities carry profound human and economic consequences for Liberia.
We acknowledge the LNP's efforts in documenting and publishing this data and commend DCP Sam K. Collins and the LNP's Press and Public Affairs Division for their commitment to ensuring that the public remains informed about road accident data. Transparency of this nature is a critical first step: it encourages the public to exercise greater caution while using the roads and ensures that key stakeholders, including the LNP, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Public Works are held accountable for putting the required measures and regulations in place to create safer conditions for all road users, particularly the most vulnerable.
However, while we commend the LNP's commitment to tracking and reporting these cases, it must be stated clearly that the data demands far more than acknowledgement — it demands urgent, concrete, and systemic action. Without such action, the curve of road fatalities and injuries will continue to worsen in subsequent quarters and years. The responsibility for that action must be binding on the LNP, the Ministry of Public Works, and the Ministry of Transport collectively.
Chief among the required actions is the comprehensive revision of Liberia's Vehicle and Traffic Law. Enacted in 1972, over five decades ago, this law has not undergone any meaningful reform, despite the fact that the automotive industry has been revolutionized beyond recognition in the intervening years. The emergence of high-speed vehicles, motorcycles, commercial transport fleets, and increasingly dense urban traffic patterns have rendered the current law not only outdated but dangerously inadequate in addressing the realities of modern road use. A thorough revision of the Vehicle and Traffic Law is long overdue and must be treated as a legislative priority.
The revision of the law must be accompanied by a fundamental reform of the driver licensing process. The Ministry of Transport must ensure that the issuance of driver's licenses is not anchored solely in revenue generation and commercialization, as it currently appears to be the case. A driver's license should serve one primary purpose: to certify that an individual has been properly trained, tested, and determined competent to safely operate a motor vehicle. Licensing that prioritizes income over safety directly endangers lives on Liberian roads, and this practice must end. Rigorous, standardized driver training and certification programs should be established and enforced.
Over the years, RSAI's findings show that a significant number of road traffic accident cases in Liberia involve vehicle operators who are not properly trained or certified to operate a motor vehicle. The implications of this are far-reaching: operators who lack formal training frequently do not know how to read road signs, interpret speed limits, or apply the basic safety rules that govern responsible road use. In effect, placing an untrained operator behind the wheel of a vehicle on a public road is not an act of individual negligence alone — it is a systemic failure enabled by the absence of rigorous licensing standards and enforcement.
The problem, however, does not end with the operator. The roads of Monrovia and its surrounding areas carry a lethal load of mechanically defective vehicles: broken headlights and tail lights, failed brakes, bald and worn tires, non-functioning safety systems, and structurally compromised frames. These vehicles pose an active and daily danger to their passengers, other road users, and pedestrians alike. Their continued presence on public roads is not accidental; rather, it is the direct consequence of inadequate vehicle inspection regimes and the absence of consistent, meaningful enforcement.
Road Safety Action International (RSAI)'s 2023 investigation into the ELWA-RIA Highway accident which claimed nine (9) lives, including that of a student, found that the primary vehicle involved was non-roadworthy at the time of the crash. The vehicle should never have been on the road. This case is not an isolated incident; it is symptomatic of a broader and systemic pattern in which roadworthy standards are either unenforced or treated as optional. Every quarter that passes without serious intervention, similar tragedies occur, and will continue to occur.
The roads require routine, consistent, and rigorous traffic enforcement — not the sporadic and intermittent checkpoints that have historically characterized the country's approach to traffic regulation. Periodic enforcement creates the illusion of oversight while allowing defective and dangerous vehicles to circulate freely between those checkpoints. A credible enforcement regime must be sustained, intelligence-driven, and structured around the removal of non-roadworthy vehicles from circulation before they become instruments of death.
It must be stated plainly that the absence of such enforcement is not a gap or an oversight but rather a policy choice. And that choice is costing lives every quarter. When institutions responsible for road safety opt — whether by inaction, under-resourcing, or lack of political will — not to enforce existing standards, they bear a share of the moral and institutional responsibility for the fatalities that follow. Road deaths that are preventable through enforcement are not accidents in the truest sense; they are the foreseeable outcomes of decisions not made and actions not taken.
Addressing this reality must therefore be treated as an urgent priority by the LNP, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Public Works. Critically, these institutions must move beyond silos and sector-specific responses and begin operating in a genuinely integrated fashion. Road safety is not the exclusive domain of any one agency. The LNP is responsible for traffic enforcement and accident response; the Ministry of Transport oversees vehicle registration, licensing, and roadworthiness standards; and the Ministry of Public Works is responsible for road design, construction, and maintenance. When these institutions fail to coordinate, dangerous gaps emerge — and those gaps are exploited daily by untrained drivers and defective vehicles operating without consequence.
The LNP and the Ministry of Public Works must also take immediate steps to address the state of road infrastructure across the country. This includes ensuring that road signs and signage are clearly visible, properly placed, and regularly maintained. Beyond signage, roads must be designed and constructed with the safety of all users in mind, including pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users who are disproportionately represented among accident victims. Road design that neglects these groups is not only negligent; it is a systemic failure that costs lives.
In the absence of these prescribed measures, Liberia stands to lose a growing number of its citizens, who should instead be alive and contributing to the nation's social, economic, and civic development. RSAI calls on all relevant government institutions to treat road safety not as a peripheral concern, but as a national priority that demands coordinated, sustained, and evidence-driven intervention. Now that the data and realities are before us, it is time for concrete actions to avert further fatalities in the coming quarters.
"Every road death is preventable. The data is before us — the time for action is now. RSAI stands ready to work with all government institutions, development partners, and civil society organizations to ensure that Liberia's roads become safer for every road user. We will not remain silent while preventable deaths continue to claim the lives of our people."