RTMC Reports 11,485 Road Deaths in 2025

The 2025 State of Road Safety Report shows road fatalities fell by 687 from 2024 levels.

Updated on Nov. 14, 2026 in Automotive — General

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The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) released its 2025 State of Road Safety Report, recording 11,485 road fatalities in South Africa in 2025, down from 12,172 in 2024. Fatal crashes totalled 9,734, compared with 10,339 the previous year.

Why it matters

The road traffic death rate fell from 19.32 to 18.20 per 100,000 people, indicating a smaller decline per capita than the raw totals alone suggest. The RTMC has linked human factors to more than 87% of contributory factors in these deaths, pointing to driver and pedestrian behaviour as central to road safety outcomes across the country.

The report recorded 9,734 fatal crashes in 2025, down 5.85% from 10,339 in 2024. Pedestrian deaths totalled 5,224 in 2025, about 45% of all road fatalities, compared with 5,454 in 2024.

The players

Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC)

The RTMC is South Africa's national agency responsible for coordinating road traffic management and publishing national road safety data.

The details

The RTMC attributed more than 87% of contributory factors in road fatalities to human factors. Pedestrian crashes, hit-and-run incidents, single-vehicle overturns and head-on collisions were the leading crash types, together accounting for approximately 80% of recorded crashes in 2025.

2024: Fatal crashes and road fatalities recorded at prior-year levels used as the comparison baseline.
2025: Data year for the State of Road Safety Report, in which fatalities declined.
15 November 2026: World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims observed.

Roadmap

The 2025 figures continue the RTMC's annual State of Road Safety Report series, which tracks national fatality totals and the death rate per 100,000 people year on year. The decline from 12,172 to 11,485 deaths follows that series' established method of measuring progress against the prior year.

Drivers and pedestrians face the same road risks reflected in these figures, with human factors accounting for more than 87% of contributory factors. Pedestrians, who made up roughly 45% of road deaths, should take particular care around hit-and-run hotspots and single-vehicle overturn risks.

The takeaway

Most of the contributory factors behind road deaths are within a road user's control, so attentive driving and safe pedestrian habits remain the most direct way to reduce the toll ahead of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.