The Zambia Police Service has issued its full statement on road traffic crashes for 2025. We have checked its arithmetic line by line before publishing: the provincial figures, the quarterly figures, the day-of-week figures and the road-user fatality figures each sum exactly to the stated totals, which deserves acknowledgement, because it is not something we can say of every official release we have worked with. One gap remains, seven deaths between the quarterly statements and the annual total, and it is set out below rather than smoothed over.
2024 and 2025 compared
| Measure | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| All recorded crashes | 35,731 | 38,712 | +2,981 (+8.3%) |
| Fatal crashes | 1,804 | 2,068 | +264 |
| Deaths | 2,199 | 2,567 | +368 (+16.7%) |
| Serious injuries | 5,798 | 7,045 | +1,247 (+21.5%) |
| Slight injuries | 10,123 | 11,166 | +1,043 |
| Damage-only crashes | 22,966 | 25,397 | +2,431 |
| Road traffic offences | 146,432 | 182,054 | +35,622 (+24.3%) |
| Admission of guilt fines collected | K74,371,515 | K82,276,643 | +K7,905,128 (+10.6%) |
Every measure worsened in 2025. Injuries rose faster than crashes: serious injuries increased 21.5% against an 8.3% rise in crashes, which points to higher impact speeds, not merely more traffic.
Who was killed
Pedestrians alone account for 36% of all deaths. Taken together, pedestrians (934), motorcycle riders and passengers (484) and bicycle riders and passengers (227) make up 1,645 deaths, 64% of everyone killed on Zambian roads in 2025 was outside a car. Vehicle drivers, the group with the most protection and the most control over the crash, account for 11%. This is the arithmetic behind everything ZRST builds: crossings, 30 km/h school zones, rider training and protected space for people who walk and cycle.
Children
1,493 children were killed or injured in road crashes in 2025. Of the 866 boys, 148 were killed, 321 seriously injured and 397 slightly injured. Of the 627 girls, 95 were killed, 233 seriously injured and 299 slightly injured. In total 243 children under 16 died, nearly one in ten of all road deaths, and most child casualties were pedestrians and passengers, children walking to school or riding in vehicles they did not choose and could not control.
Where and when
| Province | Crashes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Lusaka | 20,230 | 52.3% |
| Copperbelt | 4,988 | 12.9% |
| Central | 3,862 | 10.0% |
| Northwestern | 2,200 | 5.7% |
| Southern | 2,197 | 5.7% |
| Eastern | 1,431 | 3.7% |
| Muchinga | 1,259 | 3.3% |
| Luapula | 1,016 | 2.6% |
| Northern | 798 | 2.1% |
| Western | 731 | 1.9% |
More than half of all recorded crashes occur in Lusaka Province. Crashes climb through the year, 8,809 in Q1, 9,377 in Q2, 10,126 in Q3 and 10,400 in Q4, and cluster toward the weekend: Friday is the most dangerous day (6,882 crashes), followed by Saturday (6,249) and Sunday (5,582).
Causes, in the police’s words and in ours
The statement attributes most crashes to human error, led by excessive speed, misjudging clearance distance, failure to keep to the nearside and disobeying traffic signs. We report that finding as issued, and we read it differently: when 934 pedestrians die on roads that give them no footpath, no crossing and no speed protection, the error is in the road as much as in the person. Human mistakes are certain; deaths from them are not. That is the Safe System position, and 2025’s numbers are its strongest Zambian evidence yet.
One unresolved figure
The four quarterly statements report 498, 642, 753 and 667 deaths, which sum to 2,560. The annual statement reports 2,567, seven more, and 2,068 fatal crashes against the quarterly sum of 2,069. The quarterly crash totals, by contrast, sum exactly. A plausible explanation, and this is ZRST’s reading, not the police’s, is that people who died of their injuries after a quarterly cutoff were added to the annual count. We have asked the Zambia Police Service to confirm, and will update this page when they do. Until then, ZRST treats the annual figures as the national numbers of record.
Zambia Police Service, annual road traffic statement for 2025, issued by Godfrey Chilabi, Public Relations Office. Compiled, checked and published by the Zambia Road Safety Trust, last reviewed 5 July 2026. Cite the Zambia Police Service as the source of record and this page as the compilation. Related official documents, including RTSA, WHO and UNDP reports, are on our Road Safety Data page.
ZRST compiles, checks and publishes Zambia’s road crash data so that policy, funding and enforcement decisions rest on numbers someone has actually read. To support this work or request a data briefing, write to daniel.mwamba@zambianroadsafety.org.
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