Road transport is one of the widely used transportation systems and provides the highest proportion of transport services. However, the rapid development of road transportation has brought increased road traffic crashes (RTCs) that resulted in loss of life, injuries to persons, and damage to assets. The Sub-Saharan region is the most affected region in the world. Ethiopia, which is part of the Sub-Saharan region, is witnessing a consistent growth in the number of RTCs. To this end, the objective of this study was to assess the status of RTCs in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, in relation to the trends, severity, and characteristics. Furthermore, the study had an objective of identifying and analyzing RTC blackspots in the city to highlight the road safety issues and potential interventions in these locations. 10-years secondary data was collected from the police departments of the city to study the status of RTCs. ArcGISbased hotspot and kernel density estimation methods were employed to identify blackspots in the city. Weight-severity index method prioritization was implemented to select the most critical blackspots. Physical site survey was conducted to analyze the prevailing road safety issues at the blackspots. It was found that there was an average annual growth rate of 13.4 % in fatal RTCs. The productive age group (18-30 years) was found to be the majority victim of RTCs comprising 49% of the fatality. Moreover, pedestrians were the most affected vulnerable road users constituting about 66% of the fatality. From the ArcGIS and prioritization study, “Ajip”, “Medhanialem”, “Abay” Bridge and “NOC” intersection were locations by which more frequent and severe RTCs occurred. Lack of pedestrian provisions like crossing zebra marks, walkways, inadequate visibility, lack of traffic control devices such as speed limit signs and driver behavior such as driving closely and improper lane changing has been observed during the site survey. Improving the road and pedestrian facilities has been suggested as a potential intervention measure to alleviate RTCs in the blackspots. The study finally recommends improvement in data management of the police departments and unified effort by concerned bodies to effectively minimize the negative impacts of RTCs.