iAfrica reports on CARS' (Committee for Active Road Safety) on-going campaign to raise South Africa's automotive safety standards. The association claims that a recently released report from the National Vehicle Testing Association shows that 80 percent of vehicles on the Republic's roads are unsafe to drive. "This is a totally untenable situation and we fully support them in their call to have the regular testing of vehicles written into our statutes," announced CARS' chairperson Ian Auret. Yup, that's right: there is no annual, bi-annual or any kind of annual testing procedure for South Africa's privately-owned passenger vehicles. Stats on Africa's automotive carnage are notoriously hard to come by (reliable stats even more so). The UN's Global Road Safety Partnership estimates 111.4 deaths per 10k licensed RSA drivers. That's not bad compared to the Central African Republic's (under-reported) 339.2, but it's still a plenty heavy toll for automotive independence.
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I remember a story a South African bloke told me.
His uncle had two cars. One was a Mercedes-Benz C class, the other was a beat-up, 13 year old Opel.
The reason for this was when he needed to drive into town, if he drove around in the Mercedes-Benz, he’d have been killed in about 5 minutes flat through a car jacking.
In South Africa, cars are dangerous in more ways than one……
Maybe we should have SA cars in the TWA contest.
You’re trying to send me a message by using that car in the photo, aren’t you?
Non-indiginous-to-the-continent (read: white) South Africans have been leaving the country for quite awhile now. I understand a certain Canadian city is very popular, and euphamistically called
“To Run To”
With a crime rate such as they have in South Africa, little wonder.
When my wife and two sons and I visited Toronto, we felt safer than in any British or US city. In fact, we walked out of a central underground parking garage, looking around like tourists (because – we were) and a kindly man walked up and asked if he could help us? He was Toronto’s chief city planner. Believe it or not.
My eldest son is even thinking of moving there, to attend U of T and then hopefully becoming a prof there.
Another nice thing about Toronoto is that you can eat in 3 restaurants a day for a month and never sample all of the different types of cuisine on offer from all of the different cultures, all of whom seem to be able to get along just fine. It’s very refreshing.
Plus, Canadian cars seem to always be in reasonable shape and safe – despite having the big disadvantage of salted roads causing a potential for rust.
Many states in the US have very little, if any, safety testing of cars. I see plenty of rusted death traps on my daily commute.
Pfft, that’ll buff right out. Might need some bondo, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.
I think therein lies the problem, buffage-abuse! There is such a thing as too much buffing out, you know.
Florida used to have some emissions testing, but that went out a while ago. Registration renewal is just a check in the mail. More tellingly, neither my current nor former insurance company cared either, and they’d be the ones holding the bag if my ball joint gave out and an inopportune moment and I killed someone/myself.
Most motorists have some modicum of respect for their own lives, and generally enough prosperity, to have suspicious symptoms checked out and fixed, or the car replaced, before basic roadworthiness is completely gone. Perhaps not much more than that, but if the insurers, who have billions on the line, don’t press for universal inspections, then I don’t worry too much at night.
Glenn126
I almost moved to Toronto, until I saw the tax rates and home prices. Boston much cheaper, and we have better sports teams.
Sounds like California. Zero safety requirements.
SherbornSean –maybe so, but Boston is a tiny little city with miserable weather. In Toronto you can hide underground walking in PATH for days.. just find housing and a job that is connected to PATH and *poof* no more miserable winter haha.
Though is is so geographically close to Buffalo and Rochester NY (the latter of which being where I am sorely located right now), Toronto doesn’t get the crazy lake effect snow you hear about for the region because the city is north of Lake Erie and Ontario.
It’s a very expensive place to live for good reason, it’s so clean, safe, friendly, etc :)
i thought this was an article like the one in car and driver or one of those mags a couple years back. in that article it talked about how bad car jackings were there so people where paying shops to modify there car to injure the jacker so they could get away.the two mods i remember were putting a spring loaded steel bar under the drivers door that would swing out and brake a car jackers ankles when the driver pulled up a pin. the other was a flame thrower that popped out from under the drivers door and engulfed the jacker in flames.
Sweet, I love the ankle smasher idea but the flame thrower doesn’t sound like a good idea in a car filled with gas. ka-boom
When my brother went to Africa a few years back he told me it was insane and a bit unreal driving down there, dangerous didn’t begin to describe it. Like rules didn’t exist, people drove however dangerous they chose.
Unfortunately the value of a human life there is not as high as on other continents, so there is less emphasis on protecting it.