South Africans are speed demons – The numbers

South Africa has emerged as one of the countries with the fastest average driving speeds in the world.

UK-based MoneySuperMarket determined that the average driving speed in South Africa when combining long-distance and urban travelling is 93.6km/h.

This puts Mzansi 12th on a list of 37 countries in terms of its average travelling speed.

Number one is, understandably, the United States at 109.5km/h, with its vast open roads and varying caps on speed limits depending on the state within which you are driving.

The slowest country on average is the small Mediterranean archipelago of Malta where most journeys are completed at 23km/h.

When focusing on just long-distance speeds between major cities, South Africa ranks 17th with an average speed of 58.2km/h.

The United States against sits in first place with the highest average long-distance driving speed of 109.5km/h.

The fastest state, according to MoneySuperMarket, is Wyoming with an average long-distance driving speed of 115.6km/h.

Canada ranks in second place with an average of 107.9km/h, Oman third at 104.7km/h, and Croatia fourth at 102.9km/h.

At the other end of the spectrum, Andorra, Malta, and Mauritania see the slowest average long-distance speeds of 29.4km/h, 23.0km/h, and 22.9km/h, respectively.

Focusing our attention on urban travelling speeds, South Africa doesn’t even make the list.

Estonia is the country that tops the charts for the highest average driving speed at 46.6km/h, closely followed by Brunei with an average of 46.3km/h.

Many of the countries in the top 10 for fastest urban average driving speeds have a lower density of cars on the road, resulting in less congestion and allowing drivers to reach greater speeds.

However, though no countries’ average driving speed breaks above 50km/h.

The table below details the countries with the fastest average speeds across both urban and long-distance driving:

Methodology

In determining these statistics, MoneySuperMarket selected each country’s three most populated cities in different regions.

Routes connecting city centres were then plotted via Google Routes with traffic awareness enabled and tested at six times on both Mondays and Saturdays.

The average speed across these journeys was used to calculate long-distance travel speed.

Meanwhile, urban speeds were measured by routing through the city centre in two directions, from a point 5km outside to 5km beyond it.

As with long-distance tests, speeds were averaged across multiple time slots on both days.

Regional and state-level tests followed the same process but used two cities at least 50km apart.