There is a saying that South Africa is not for sissies. (Softies in other words). The latest study by the South African Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR) goes to prove this.
Previously I have discussed the excessive number of people who perish on South African roads and that the figure pretty much put the rest of the world to shame. In fact, we have the highest road fatality rate.
However, South Africa do it again and buck the trend. The latest study has found that more people are murdered in South Africa than die in motor vehicle accident. The ration is-Murder : 100 000: 32 & Accidents : 100 000:28!
Researcher Kerwin Lebone said that the international trend is that twice as many people perish on the roads as opposed to murder most foul. In the USA, three times more people die from road deaths than are murdered. In sunny South Africa, we have it the other way round.
The information for the study,was sourced from the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Road Traffic Corporation over the period 2010/2011, so it is pretty current. With this in mind, it is of little comfort to know our murder rate has declined 7% over the previous year and halved since 1994. Despite this, we are in the top two countries for murder rates, so still, there is nothing to celebrate. We also need to be a little cynical because it is believed that the SAPS often downplay the murder statistics, to make their success rate appear better, so it is not beyond belief that our murder rate is slightly higher than the figures supplied.
Both these figures are nothing short of startling and need to reduce. The reasons and ideas to reduce either constitute another article and therefore, we will not touch up these.
Watch this space for more weird and wonderful stories from my exiting country. I still love it here though.
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