Costs and causes of fatal road accidents in South Africa

Costs and causes of fatal road accidents in South Africa

• Download PDF Copy

July 30, 2018

Awareness campaigns alone may not be sufficient to reduce the number of accidents on South African roads. Introducing compulsory third-party insurance and the imminent emergence of self-driving cars may have an impact.

According to Fourie and Verster, human factors contributed to almost 80% of the fatal road accidents in South Africa in 2015, with road and environmental conditions contributing to 13% and vehicle factors to 8%. Fourie and Verster analyzed the fatal road accidents - those in which at least one person is killed as a direct result of the accident - in South Africa in 2015. Although fatal accidents constituted only 1.3% of all road accidents, they equated to 42% of the total costs involved.

The economic cost - R143 billion in 2015 - is not the only cost: 13 000 lives were lost in 2015 as a result of road accidents. Pedestrians accounted for 38% of the fatalities and male individuals 78%, with 41% of those killed being younger than 30 years old.

Source:

https://www.sajs.co.za