Solely 35% of 11.4 million registered autos within the nation are insured, based on the South African Insurance coverage Affiliation.
Its company affairs supervisor Kwanele Sibanda mentioned there have been varied contributing components.
“It’s not reasonably priced for them … even third party-only cowl. One other issue might be as a result of they didn’t drive commonly; individuals who labored from residence, for instance, might not really feel the necessity to take out insurance coverage for his or her automobiles.
“If most of their travelling entails popping to the outlets and again, it might appear that taking out cowl isn’t value it.
“The final issue might be there have been individuals who thought it will by no means occur to them; people are vulnerable to a phenomenon referred to as ‘optimism biases’.
“That is when folks assume they’re much less doubtless than others to have one thing dangerous occur to them – that they’re higher drivers than everybody else and, in fact, they may by no means be in an accident.”
Sibanda famous having automobile insurance coverage was meant to alleviate unexpected bills.
Car Affiliation spokesperson Layton Beard mentioned not having automobile insurance coverage posed a excessive danger.
A Street Site visitors Administration Company report final yr confirmed drunk driving accounted for 27.1% of deadly crashes in SA. The report additionally confirmed that 55% of deadly crashes occurred at night time and about three out of 5 occurred over the weekends.