59 cars are hijacked in South Africa per day – The most affected areas

The South African Police (SAPS) have published the new crime statistics for the second quarter of the 2024/2025 period, revealing that at least 5,447 carjackings took place across all nine provinces.

This means that approximately 61 cars were reportedly hijacked on average every day in South Africa between July and September 2024.

The good news is that this statistic is actually lower than it was over the same period in 2023 with 562 (9.4%) fewer cases.

This positive trend could also been seen many other vehicle-related crimes such as truck hijackings, which dropped by 2,302 cases (15.6%) from last year.

It’s a similar story for the theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which declined by 989 reports (10.3%), and theft out of or from motor vehicles went down by 2,030 incidents (8.9%).

Another good development concerns the targeting of cash-in-transit vehicles, which fell from 60 to 40 cases – a 37% decrease.

Thankfully, cases of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs has also been reduced by 1,924 reports, reflecting a 13.6% improvement from the same period the year prior.

Carjackings hotspots per province

Gauteng saw the highest number of hijackings in the second quarter with 2,733 cases.

The top 10 police stations in Gauteng for carjackings were as follows:

This was followed by the Western Cape, which had 861 reports.

The top 10 police stations in the Western Cape for carjackings were as follows:

Third was KwaZulu-Natal, which recorded 728 incidents.

The top 10 police stations in KwaZulu-Natal for carjackings were as follows:

Outside the top three, the Eastern Cape also had a high number of hijackings with 480 filings.

The top 10 police stations in the Eastern Cape for carjackings were as follows:

Next was Mpumalanga, which had 305 carjacking attempts.

The top 10 police stations in Mpumalanga for carjackings were as follows:

After Mpumalanga was North West, which saw 163 hijackings.

The top 10 police stations in North West for carjackings were as follows:

Limpopo had fewer incidents than Free State, ending with 110 reports.

The top 10 police stations in Limpopo for carjackings were as follows:

The second least-affected province was the Free State, which only saw 54 hijackings.

The top 10 police stations in the Free State for carjackings were as follows:

Finally, there’s the sparsely-populated North Cape, which only had 13 attempts in three months.

The top 10 police stations in the Northern Cape for carjackings were as follows: