A colleague shared an article today regarding the increase in road deaths today so I decided to do some research on how South Africa compares to other countries.

The article published by OUR WORLD IN DATA, reports the number of road deaths per 100’000. In 1990 South Africa started at 48.06 increasing to their worst year of 54.99 in 2003 and then dropped to their best at 39.07 in 2014. Since then the numbers have started increasing with 39.66 in 2016. If you compare South Africa with the United Kingdom they are nearly 11 x worse than the UK who are at 3.82 per 100’000. If we compare South Africa to other African counties it doesn’t get better.

Of the 12 counties, I compared in 2016 these were the results from High to Low; South Africa (39.66), Zimbabwe (35.9), Zambia (22.17), Brazil (22.17), Mozambique (22.7), India (21.3), Kenya (14.7), Nigeria (13.75), United States (12.76), Australia (6.2), Germany and United Kingdom (3.82).

In 2018 we have modern trucks with increased safety features, we have telematics systems and video recorders with endless information on driving style and who the bad drivers are, fleet operators must take a bold step and hold all their staff accountable for managing road safety. 

We as road users must stop bribing police to let us off when we get caught speeding or not wearing a seat belt, we need to stop and report corruption to save ourselves, families and friends.