Auto & General Insurance is urging South African motorists to take it easy on the roads this festive season.
Auto & General Insurance is urging South African motorists to take it easy on the roads this festive season.
“Traffic is dramatically picking up on the highways as people begin their cross-country commutes to holiday destinations. We all need to mind our manners, and manage our emotions, to make our roads a less dangerous place to be this festive season,” urges the company’s director Angelo Haggiyannes.
Research shows South African drivers to be among the most aggressive in the world. According to a report earlier this year by international market research company Synovate – which has been conducting research into road rage since 2005 – one out of two South African drivers have recently experienced aggressive or threatening driving behaviour. That’s half of the vehicle-driving population.
The most common form of road rage experienced by South African motorists is aggressive and threatening driving behaviour or rude gestures and verbal insults, which have been experienced by 51% of drivers.
Alarmingly, nearly one in ten of the survey respondents have been a victim of another driver actually leaving their vehicle to demonstrate their anger. A quarter of the respondents admitted to using rude gestures, flashing headlights and hooting to indicate their own anger.
Although the country has a high rate of road rage, only one in ten of the drivers in the survey saw themselves as fast and reckless drivers, and four out of ten described themselves as slow and cautious on the road.
Interestingly, while the fast and reckless are more likely to direct aggressive behaviour at other drivers, they are also more prone to experiencing road rage behaviour from other motorists, with 60% reporting that they’d experienced aggressive and threatening behaviour compared with 46% of the slow and cautious drivers.
