These are the worst countries to drive in – And how South Africa compares

Recent statistics have revealed that South Africa is the fourth-worst country to drive in, thanks to high road death rates, poor road quality, higher-than-average speed limits, and high congestion levels.

This data comes from the UK-based Compare the Market, owned by the BGL Group.

The BGL was formerly owned by the late South Africa-born billionaire Douw Steyn, who also owned Auto & General Insurance and is the namesake for The Steyn City in Johannesburg.

The results from Compare the Market were compiled based on data-led analysis of road safety, traffic conditions, and driving environments from 65 global locations.

Using five pre-defined and consistent measures for this data, the results are intended to indicate the driving experiences in each area.

The five sets of data used to determine the results include:

• Road deaths per 100,000 people – Based on historical data, this can be used to predict the number of road deaths per 100,000 people in 2025.
• Legal Blood Alcohol Concentration Limits – Deals with what each region would consider an illegal alcohol level for driving.
• Average speed limits across major, urban, and rural roads – This is measured in kilometres per hour.
• Quality of roads – Measured on a scale of one to seven.
• Traffic index score – Measures congestion with higher scores indicating greater inefficiency and backlogs.

Using the average results of these five data sets, South Africa was the fourth-worst country for driving, with an average score of 48.45 out of 100.

This is the result of South Africa’s consistently poor scores across the five data sets, with the two most notable results being an average of 17.9 road deaths per 100,000 people and a 4.53 score out of 7 for road quality.

However, South Africa’s alcohol tolerance of 0.05 is lower than that of some of the better-ranked countries on the list, and its average speed limit was 90km/h, not especially higher or lower than that of other countries in the top ten.

The traffic index score was another point of issue, with a score of 186.1, highlighting the prevalence of congestion and accidents.

The top ten worst places to drive

While South Africa was ranked very high, it did not enter the top three on the list.

The number one worst place to drive was Thailand, chiefly due to its 30.7 road deaths per 100,000 people, which positioned it first despite its other scores being marginally better than some of the other countries in the top five.

Interestingly, despite this score, Thailand did not have the highest number of road deaths per 100,000.

That honour went to Saudi Arabia with 53.8, which holds the tenth spot likely thanks to its higher road quality, zero alcohol tolerance and comparatively decent traffic index score.

Another notable presence on the list is the United States, which was awarded the sixth spot, though it had no extreme outliers among its scores.

You can see the top ten worst countries to drive in below.