In South Africa, the roads kill almost as many as murderers

By Felicity Duncan

Over the weekend, a road accident in Limpopo killed 27 people, including small children. On that same stretch of road, 11 other people lost their lives a month ago when a bus crashed. All in all, car crashes kill between 14,000 and 15,000 South Africans every year. Almost all of the accidents that claim these lives are the result of driver error.

In other words, careless driving kills almost as many South Africans each year as intentional homicide (there were just over 20,000 murders in South Africa in 2017/18, compared to 14,000 motor accident fatalities). Preventing murder is a complex task, involving dealing with access to weapons, creating employment, improving living standards, fighting organised crime and a host of other social changes. Preventing road deaths should be easy. People just need to drive slowly, carefully, and cautiously, avoid drinking and driving, obey posted signs, and behave decently. South Africa's murder rate is tragic, but its road death rate is a crime.

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