These are the real worst drivers in South Africa

The most dangerous drivers in South Africa are those behind the wheel of Toyota Quantum minibuses and BMW 3 Series cars — not VW Polos as suggested by the Department of Transport.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) recently published its “South African Fatal Crashes in Context” report, listing the top 20 vehicle makes and models involved in deadly crashes.

For the report, the RTMC analysed crashes and Aarto speed infringements from 1 October 2017 to 30 June 2021 — nearly four years.

The analysis showed that Volkswagen Polos were involved in the most fatal crashes, followed by Toyota Hilux bakkies, and Toyota Quantum minibuses.

This should be unsurprising, as Polos and Hiluxes are extremely popular cars in South Africa.

Similarly, Toyota Quantums are favoured by minibus taxi operators and therefore spend a lot more time on the road than most other vehicles. This increases their overall likelihood of being involved in crashes.

Despite these factors that are relatively easy to account for, the Department of Transport has promoted the narrative that Polo drivers were the worst in South Africa.

Curiously, the RTMC data clearly showed that the Polo and the Hilux are South Africa’s most popular cars in South Africa, closely followed by the Corolla.

The conclusions in the RTMC report also plainly stated that Polo drivers weren’t in a statistically abnormal number of crashes.

Toyota Quantum drivers, though, were another story.

“Toyota Quantum vehicles are overrepresented by 9.0% on [speed infringements] and by 2.9% for fatal crashes vs [total vehicle population], which is reason for serious concern,” the report stated.

“The number of Volkswagen Polo vehicles involved in fatal crashes are within 1.0% of the [total vehicle population] but are overrepresented by 4.5% for [speeding infringements]”.

To find out who were really the worst drivers in South Africa, MyBroadband used the RTMC’s data to calculate which vehicles were in the most crashes relative to their popularity.

The report provides estimates of the number of specific models of cars on the road using National Traffic Information System data.

It was, therefore, trivial to recalculate percentages that take into account how many of a specific type of car is on the road in South Africa.

However, this comparison didn’t reveal anything unexpected.

Toyota Quantum, Hiace, and Avanza vehicles were at the top of the list, which is understandable given their popularity in public transport.

“Even though not acceptable, considering that Toyota Quantum and Toyota Hiace vehicles are on road on a semi-full-time basis and travel more million vehicle kilometres vs other vehicle models and would thus be exposed to more on-road conflict situations and/or to driver fatigue, one could expect more fatal crashes for this type of classes,” the RTMC stated in its report.

Simply put, these types of cars are on the road all of the time.

A much more useful measure for determining South Africa’s worst — or at least most dangerous drivers — is how many speeding infringements they got relative to drivers of other vehicles.

It should not surprise South Africans that Toyota Quantums are at the top of this list too.

Far more interesting, even if not unexpected to most of us, is that BMW 3 Series drivers are a close second.

Toyota Etios and Mercedes-Benz drivers were neck-and-neck for third and fourth worst drivers in South Africa, followed by the Ford Fiesta.

The RTMC stated that the high number of speeding infringements, especially public transport type vehicles, such as Toyota Quantums and Toyota Hiace models, is unacceptable and needs to be addressed.

The table below shows the number of speeding fines issued against specific vehicle models relative to how many cars of that type are on the road.

Therefore, the 188% for BMW 3 Series cars means that, on average, every single driver of these cars received at least one speeding fine in the past 4 years and that most got two or more speeding fines.

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