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Hijacking in South Africa is getting worse, according to South Africa’s crime statistics for Q3 2021/2022.

Last year’s data painted a similar picture of increased road crimes, so I suppose these latest stats are not much of a surprise.

Eish.

The new data covers hijacking crimes committed between October and December 2021, as presented by the South African Police Service (SAPS) to parliament today, reported BusinessTech.

A steep 5 455 hijackings in South Africa were recorded for that period.

That is a 13,8% increase from the same period in the previous year.

Following the general crime stats of the country, most of the carjacking cases were reported in our main provinces: Gauteng (2 824), KwaZulu-Natal (845), and the Western Cape (692).

The top three hotspots appear to be in the Western Cape, with the most carjackings reported in Harare, with 106 cases, followed by Nyanga (87), and Phillipi East (79).

These are the other current hotspots to watch out for across the country:

Image: Supplied to BusinessTech

Yesterday we reported on videos that showed two separate criminal acts on our South African roads – one a school bus robbery in Mpumalanga and the other a carjacking in KZN.

There are certainly some cases that are unpreventable, but ultimately, one should always be alert when on the roads. This is especially true on quieter, darker stretches, and when coming home alone at night.

I saw a nifty trick from one driver on social media the other day where they left a substantial gap between the car and the gate/garage while they waited for it to open.

That allowed them to quickly manoeuvre the car out of the driveway, even when a car had attempted to park them in for a hijacking.

Not driving straight into your driveway but rather waiting for the gates to open while parallel to your driveway, is also a useful plan.

[source:businesstech]