When you find yourself driving in a city where the number plates are different to yours, you quickly learn that the driving there is different!

Is it really possible to accurately judge the driving ability of an entire city or town based on the few individual bad driving habits you come across on its roads? Discovery Vitality seems to think so – according to its Road to a Healthier South Africa report, they found that:

Stats from Road to a Healthier South Africa Report.

 

  • Speeding

Speeding is a major predictor of car accidents in South Africa. An evident blind spot for Bloemfontein, drivers in this city rank last when it comes to speeding – 30% worse than winning Cape Town. After the Mother City, Joburg scores the best in this category – 9% away from first place.

Stats from Road to a Healthier South Africa Report.

 

  • The ABCs of driving

This 12-month measure of driving behaviour considers the ABCs of driving, with poor driving behaviour associated with harsh acceleration, harsh braking, and harsh cornering. Bloemfontein places first, for the third year in a row, with the lowest number of harsh ABC events, while Durban are in their rear-view mirror – coming in last.

Stats from Road to a Healthier South Africa Report.

 

What cars are SA’s worst drivers driving?

 Seeing as we are pointing fingers and shaming cities with bad drivers, this seems to be an appropriate time to clear the air with regards to cars with bad drivers. Which cars are SA’s best baddies driving? Well, the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) confirmed that they are behind the wheels of VW Polos. Unlike some of us, the RTMC didn’t just arrive at this conclusion after one VW Polo driver changed lanes without indicating – they based their findings on monitoring the cars on our roads and their involvement in fatal crashes, speed infringements, and general violations pertaining to the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO).

This is what their stats revealed:

Stats from RTCM

 

  • “Volkswagen Polo, Toyota Hilux and Toyota Quantum are the vehicle models mostly involved in fatal crashes in South Africa – and they account for the highest number of speed infringement fines issued.”
  • “These three vehicle models also accounted for the highest number of AARTO speed infringement fines issued by the Johannesburg Metro Police Department, the Tshwane Metro Police Department, the Gauteng Department of Community Safety, and the National Traffic Police.”
  • “Furthermore, a total of 35% of speed infringement fines were issued to these three vehicle models in the period under review. The study also found that Volkswagen Polo and Toyota Quantum vehicles aged between 5-10 years were involved in most fatal crashes”

RTMC

 

But MyBroadband has thrown a spanner in the works

MyBroadband argued that the report doesn’t conclude that Polo drivers were in a statistically abnormal number of crashes and used the RTMC’s data to calculate which vehicles committed the most infringements relative to their popularity. Polo drivers will be pleased to hear that according to MyBroadband, they may be driving the most popular vehicle but they are not the worst drivers in SA. Statistically, MyBroadband deduced that SA’s worst drivers are the ones behind the wheels of Toyota Quantums followed closely by BMW 3 Series drivers.

Ultimately, the high quantity of “bad driving” stats attributed to the above-mentioned vehicles is largely because there are so many of them on the road. But whether you are the best driver behind the wheel of one of the cars identified in this article or not, dotsure.co.za always has you covered.