Speed limits and road deaths – How South Africa is the worst in the world

A recent study by Compare The Market (CTM) found that South Africa has the deadliest drivers in the world regardless of their gender.

A big contributor to these road fatalities has been attributed to the country’s speed limits, but when comparing South Africa to the rest of the world, its restrictions are, in fact, among the stricter.

National speed limits and road deaths

Speed limits vary across the world and are dependent on national and in some countries, provincial legislature.

Take, for example, Australia, where the restriction is based on where you are in the country, with the northern regions allowing speeds of up to 130km/h on freeways and 60km/h in cities, while the southern regions are limited to 110km/h and 50km/h.

In Finland, the speed limits on national roads are dependent on the season with summer seeing a higher cap than winter due to there being less snow on the roads, and in Germany, certain sections of the highway, also known as the autobahn, are completely unrestricted.

Nevertheless, the urban and national speed limits are not that much different between South Africa and its international peers, but the number of road deaths per 100,000 citizens sounds a blaring alarm that something on our roads is not quite right.

Car crashes in the country are particularly lethal in comparison to the rest of the world, with an average of 20.5 people per 100,000 citizens losing their lives due to these accidents in 2022.

Even countries such as India where the population stretches to over 1.4 billion and the urban speed limits are higher registers around half of South Africa’s fatality rate.

The table below compares the national speed limits and road deaths between 11 countries scattered all over the globe, illustrating South Africa’s incredibly-high number of road deaths.

This is despite South Africa having one of the smaller populations of the countries on review at 59 million citizens, with only Australia (26 million), Finland (5.5 million), and Saudi Arabia (36 million) having fewer inhabitants.

Why speed limits don’t matter

The table above corroborates the findings of the CTM study and echoes the sentiments of the South African Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI), which states that the laws placed on road users do not play as much of a role in creating dangerous driving conditions as driver training and vehicle compliance do.

Looking at Finland once more, the Nordic nation is known for having one of the strictest driver’s licence tests of any country in the world which generally takes two years to complete.

It includes the usual theory-based test as well as a basic practical test to prove the student’s skills in parking, accelerating and braking, and road signs. After this is done, however, they are only handed an interim licence, and then the real judging begins.

For the next two years, these Finnish youngsters will have to do advanced driving courses requiring their takers to perform tricky tasks such as J-turns, powerslides on skidpans, and night driving oftentimes in the snow to prove they have what it takes to be behind the wheel, and once all of these are successfully passed, they are handed their full licence.

One of the results of the stringent testing regime is that Finland only had approximately 3.5 road deaths per 100,000 citizens in 2022, around 17% of what we experienced in South Africa.

In addition, RMI CEO Jakkie Olivier recently highlighted a glaring oversight in South Africa’s National Road Traffic Act that similarly leads to more crashes as well as deadlier ones.

Olivier noted that there is a concerning absence of regular roadworthy testing for private vehicles in the country, which account for about 13 million cars, or 80% of all traffic.

Private vehicles are only tested when they change ownership, as opposed to taxis and trucks which are tested annually, and buses which are reviewed every six months.

As such, the country’s ageing passenger car parc adds to the treacherous conditions of its roads as they oftentimes do not comply with the law.

Vishal Premlall, national director of the Tyres, Equipment, Parts Association (TEPA), said: “We have seen the impact of unsafe vehicles on our roads, particularly when safety critical components like brakes, tyres, and lighting are not maintained.”

“Not only can technical issues cause accidents and endanger drivers and passengers, but road accidents also place strain on our already overstretched emergency services.”

Both issues require immediate attention from government, but it is instead focusing all its energy on implementing a new set of laws that have been slammed by experts for being geared towards revenue collection rather than actually improving safety for road users.

There have been previous government proposals to cut the country’s speed limits by 10km/h across the board with the end goal being to reduce deaths caused by car accidents, but these have come and gone with no tangible results to show for them.