Last checked: 3 November 2026. Next full update after the Zambia Police Q4 2026 release, expected January 2027.
Zambia Police recorded 12,865 road traffic accidents between July and September 2026, and 859 people died. From January to September 2026, 2,286 people were killed on Zambia’s roads, compared with 1,893 in the same nine months of 2025. That is 393 more deaths, a rise of 20.8%.
This page brings together every quarterly police release since January 2025, checked by the Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST). We cite each source, and we say where the figures do not add up.
Accidents in Zambia by quarter, 2025 to 2026
| Period | All crashes | Fatal crashes | Deaths | People seriously injured | Police release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2025 | 8,809 | 410 | 498 | 1,550 | 17 Apr 2025 |
| Q2 2025 | 9,377 | 522 | 642 | 1,826 | 16 Jul 2025 |
| Q3 2025 | 10,126 | 583 | 753 | Not published | 22 Oct 2025 |
| Q4 2025 | 10,400 | 554 | 667 | 1,776 | 10 Jan 2026 |
| Full year 2025 | 38,712 | 2,068 | 2,567 | 15 Jan 2026 | |
| Q1 2026 | 9,772 | 527 | 681 | 1,674 | 16 Apr 2026 |
| Q2 2026 | 11,074 | 602 | 746 | 1,701 | 25 Jul 2026 |
| Q3 2026 | 12,865 | 747 | 859 | 2,144 | 21 Oct 2026 |
| Jan to Sep 2026 | 33,711 | 1,876 | 2,286 | ZRST total |
A fatal crash and a person killed are different measures. Quarterly deaths for 2025 add to 2,560, while the annual statement gives 2,567. We have asked Zambia Police to clarify.
Recent fatal crashes
- 1 November 2026, Serenje: five people killed when a minibus collided with two trucks at Mpelembe on the Chitambo to Mansa Road. Police reported a possible lane departure; inquiries are continuing.
- 19 October 2026, Rufunsa: a bus crash at Manenekela Hills on the Great East Road. Six passengers died at first; by 21 October police reported eight deaths, including two infants.
Read our full report on the Serenje and Rufunsa crashes. We list a crash here only once police have confirmed it.
Main causes of road accidents in Zambia
Police recorded excessive speed in 3,014 of the 12,865 crashes in July to September 2026, about 23%. In April to June it was 2,523 crashes, again the leading recorded factor.
Police cause codes describe what a driver or road user did. They do not measure road design, vehicle condition or how fast an injured person reached care, and all three decide whether a crash kills.
Where most accidents happen
Lusaka Province recorded 6,325 crashes in July to September 2026, about 49% of the national total. Copperbelt rose from 1,125 crashes in Q2 to 2,378 in Q3. That jump is too large to accept without checking, and we have asked police to confirm it. Without Copperbelt, national crash growth in Q3 was 18.7%, not 27%.
Provincial crash counts do not show where people died.
Who is dying
- Pedestrians: 934 of the 2,567 people killed in 2025 (36%). With motorcyclists, passengers on motorcycles and cyclists, people outside a car made up 64% of deaths.
- Children: 91 children under 16 died in July to September 2026.
- Hit-and-run: 68 of the 747 fatal crashes in Q3 2026, about one in eleven.
Why road deaths are rising in 2026
Crashes are not getting more deadly. For January to September, there were 19.2 deaths per 100 injury crashes in 2025 and 19.5 in 2026, a difference we could not tell apart from chance (p = 0.62).
What has changed is the number of crashes, and enforcement has not kept pace. In Q3 2026, police recorded 3.9 offences per crash, down from 4.9 a year earlier. Admission of guilt revenue fell from K22.56 million to K19.18 million. We do not know why, and we are not alleging wrongdoing, but it needs explaining.
Read the October 2026 brief online, with charts and methods
Questions people ask
How many people died in road accidents in Zambia in 2026?
Zambia Police recorded 2,286 road deaths from January to September 2026. Full-year figures are expected in January 2027.
How many people died on Zambia’s roads in 2025?
2,567, from 38,712 recorded crashes, according to the Zambia Police annual statement.
What is the main recorded cause of accidents in Zambia?
Excessive speed, recorded in about 23% of crashes in July to September 2026.
Which province has the most accidents?
Lusaka, with roughly half of all recorded crashes.
Sources and limits
Figures come from Zambia Police quarterly and annual statements, as reported by Zambia Monitor (Q3 2026), Zambia Monitor (Q2 2026) and Zambia Monitor (2025 annual), and analysed in the ZRST technical brief, version 1 (PDF). Police summaries do not give a full district, road or time-of-day dataset. WHO estimates suggest police records undercount deaths, but by how much in 2026 is not known.
For older national reports from RTSA, WHO and UNDP, see Road Safety Data Sources for Zambia and our Research and Data Hub.
Journalists, researchers and partners: email info@zambianroadsafety.org or call +260 961 475 610. Get the quarterly data briefing by email.