Failing to signal, driving inside the yellow line or ignoring stop signs… we have all seen some of these bad driving habits in our cities. However, some local cities take the title of having the worst drivers.
According to Budget Insurance, the insurance company revealed that the accident claims data for 2023 determined which cities – as well as provinces – had the best to worst drivers.
The top five South African cities with the best drivers listed were Rustenburg, Centurion, Pietermaritzburg, Gqeberha (formerly known as Port Elizabeth) and Bloemfontein. Coming in at number six is Durban followed by Johannesburg and Pretoria, respectively. Last but not least was Cape Town taking the cake as the city with the worst drivers.
View this post on Instagram
Regarding the provinces with the best to worst drivers, Budget Insurance listed the following:
- Northern Cape
- Free State
- Limpopo
- North West
- Mpumalanga
- Eastern Cape
- KwaZulu-Natal
- Western Cape
- Gauteng
The business news publication BusinessTech adds that the Road Traffic Management Corporation’s data stated that there were 12,436 fatalities in 2022/23, while 1,427 people died on the roads in the 2023/2024 festive season between 1 December and 11 January. This comes to an average of 32 motorists killed per day.
The publication further shares that in January of this year, the transport minister, Sindisiwe Chikunga, noted traffic volumes had grown, with at least 13.1 million registered vehicles on the country’s roads at the start of the recent festive season campaign. This is reported to be a 168,000 increase from the year before.