South Africa’s 60km/h speed limit problem

MyBroadband’s comparison of typical road speed limits in 34 countries found that South Africa’s highway speed limit was generally on par with those of developed countries.

However, the 60 kilometres per hour (km/h) limit in built-up areas was higher than in most of the countries we compared it to.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) proposed that South Africa reduce its speed limits by 10km/h in a presentation to Parliament’s transport portfolio committee in early 2022.

The suggested change would reduce the common speed limit of 60km/h in urban areas to 50km/h.

The speed limits for public roads outside urban areas and freeways would also be reduced to 90km/h and 110km/h, respectively.

The RTMC argued the changes would align with the United Nations (UN) recommendations on road speed reductions — which was binding on South Africa as a member of the UN.

The UN has argued that dropping speed limits would result in fewer road fatalities, but road safety experts like Rob Handfield-Jones have disputed this.

Handfield-Jones, the managing director of Driving.co.za, said South Africa’s best year in terms of road safety was 1998 — when speed limits on many roads were considerably higher.

He also pointed out that the South African government’s own research had shown speed was a factor in less than 8% of accidents.

MyBroadband compared South Africa’s speed limits for built-up areas and highways with those in 33 well-known countries across all populated continents.

Our selection consisted of several neighbouring countries, well-developed nations, and popular destinations for South African emigrants.

We found that the most common speed limit in built-up areas in towns and cities was 50km/h, which applied in 18 countries.

Two more countries had default urban speed limits of 30 miles per hour (48km/h), while another limited speeds at 40km/h.

Overall, 22 of the 34 countries had slower urban speed limits than South Africa.

For several of those countries, speed limits dropped down to 30km/h or 20km/h in residential areas.

Including South Africa, 10 countries had default urban speeds of 60km/h. Most of these were also in Africa.

The only country with a higher default speed limit in built-up areas was India, which allowed cars to go up to 70km/h on urban roads.

Interestingly, the country’s last reported road death rate per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021 was about half of South Africa’s last reported figure in 2019.

Where South Africa had the 58th-worst fatality rate using this measure, India ranked 120th.

Highway speeds mostly the same or faster

The maximum highway or expressway speed limit of 120km/h was the most popular for this category of road. It is used in 18 of the countries considered for our comparison.

Six countries use 110km/h as their highway speed limit. The slowest limit for these roads was in Singapore, which restricts top speeds to 90km/h.

Six countries had a 130km/h speed limit while one had an 85mph (137km/h) limit on certain highways.

The country with the highest speed limit on highways was Germany, which applies no speed limit on its Autobahn. It does recommend a maximum speed of 130km/h.

In the past few years, just over 300 people have died annually in crashes on the Autobahn, compared with about 2,500 in the entire Germany.

In comparison, South Africa’s last festive season alone saw over 1,500 road fatalities.

The table below compares the most common speed limits in built-up areas and on highways in 34 countries.