PE has the best drivers in the country

The safest place to drive in the country is Port Elizabeth‚ with the best drivers overall in the country. Cape Town is in second place‚ and Bloemfontein in third place.

The worst drivers in South Africa hail from Nelspruit‚ where speedsters make the Mpumalanga capital city an unsafe place to be on the road.

Discovery Insure analysed the driving behaviour of the 10 largest metropolitan areas in South Africa. The statistics are based on more than 30‚000 South Africans who downloaded the free Discovery Insure app and are currently participating in the Challenge.

This is the second year that the challenge has run‚ and the results indicate an improvement in driving behaviour from 2014 to this year.

In the battle of the sexes‚ men are best at not screeching to a sudden halt while female motorists know how to take a corner.

Neurotic people are better drivers than extroverts and the over-50s beat their younger counterparts on the road. This is according to the latest Discovery Insure analysis on driving behaviour in South Africa.

Overall women drive better than men‚ but only by a small margin‚ the data shows.

Apart from balanced cornering‚ women drivers are also good at avoiding harsh acceleration and keeping to the speed limit. Men‚ apart from avoiding harsh braking‚ also score well for avoiding distracted driving.

Polokwane‚ Johannesburg‚ Pretoria‚ Pietermaritzburg‚ East London are next.

Durban at ninth place and then Nelspruit in tenth spot are at the bottom of the rankings.

Overall driving behaviour has improved by more than 10% from last year.

The greatest area of improvement is fewer motorists using their phones while driving – a reduction of 22%.

In 2014‚ the data showed that if a driver uses their mobile phone once during a trip‚ the result is an average of 52 seconds of distracted driving. This is equivalent to driving blind for one kilometre at 60km/h and makes the driver four times more likely to have an accident during that trip‚ the company said.

Port Elizabeth’s greatest areas of improvement are; lower levels of speeding coupled with fewer distracted driving events that mostly involve phone use while driving. The analysis reveals that drivers in large urban areas are more prone to distracted driving events. Pretoria and Johannesburg based drivers use their cell phones more frequently while driving on the roads.

Although Nelspruit drivers score well on acceleration and braking‚ they score poorly for speeding. This currently places them at the bottom of the table.

Older drivers aged over 50 years score more than 14% higher than those 30 years and younger.

Researching the personality types associated with driving behaviour‚ Discovery found that “conscientious” people are the safest drivers because they demonstrate self-discipline and control over impulses.

The second best drivers are classified as “neurotic”‚ referring to people who are prone to anxiety and more likely to be fearful of the future.

Third were people with “agreeable” personality traits who showed a tendency towards consideration towards others‚ followed by people with an “open” personality‚ who are intellectually curious and creative‚ although sometimes rebellious.

In last place are “extroverts”‚ who are energetic and seek external stimulus‚ as well as prone to thrill-seeking and attention-seeking behaviour.

According to the Road Traffic Management Corporation‚ around 5‚500 people were killed on South Africa’s roads from April to August this year‚ with private vehicles contributing to half these fatalities.

“Innovative technologies‚ such as the telematics that Discovery Insure uses to make members more aware of their driving behaviour‚ has the potential to dramatically improve the safety of South Africa’s roads‚” its CEO Anton Ossip said. “A model which rewards good driving has clear benefits for a country where road deaths are a growing problem.” - Juliette Saunders,RDM News Wire