Beware of new hijacking trend in South Africa
New data show that the times of day when most hijackings occur have shifted, with criminals now operating more often during the week.
This is the feedback from Tracker’s latest vehicle crime statistics, which noted that a vehicle can be stolen or hijacked on any day, but clear trends have emerged across the country.
According to Tracker South Africa, hijackings are now more common between 16h00 and 21h00 on weekdays.
Tracker also noted that vehicle theft remains more prevalent on weekends nationally. “Theft is most common on Saturdays between 11h00 and 21h00. Hijacking incidents peak between 16h00 and 24h00 on Fridays,” Tracker said.
“When focusing on business hijackings, a slightly different pattern emerges, with incidents most commonly occurring on weekday afternoons and evenings, between 16h00 and 21h00.”
Business-owned vehicles remain more vulnerable to vehicle crime, although the gap has narrowed considerably over the past year.
According to Tracker, business vehicles are now 17% more likely to be targeted than personally owned vehicles, compared with 48% a year earlier.
Nationally, business vehicles are almost twice as likely to be hijacked as stolen. This trend is more pronounced in some provinces than others.
In the Eastern Cape, business hijackings are almost five times more prevalent than theft, while in Mpumalanga, they are more than eight times as prevalent.
However, the data also shows that privately owned vehicles are more frequently stolen than hijacked. Theft accounts for 55% of incidents involving personal vehicles, compared with 45% for hijackings.
Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal remain the biggest provincial hotspots, which together account for 80% of all vehicle crime incidents recorded by Tracker.
In the Eastern Cape, consumer hijackings are twice as prevalent as theft, while in the Western Cape, hijackings exceed theft by 42%. Mpumalanga also recorded more hijackings than thefts involving privately owned vehicles.
Some good news
Despite these changing patterns, Tracker’s historical data show that the overall risk of vehicle crime has declined substantially over the past three decades.
As the company marks 30 years in South Africa, it said the proportion of its customers affected by vehicle theft and hijacking has fallen from approximately 4% in the late 1990s to 0.5% in recent years.
Tracker attributed the decline to advances in vehicle-tracking technology, stolen-vehicle recovery networks, insurance incentives, and telematics.
The industry’s evolution has also expanded the role of tracking companies beyond recovering stolen vehicles to include driver behaviour monitoring, fleet management, and safety programmes.
Duma Ngcobo, chief operating officer at Tracker, said the changing nature of vehicle crime meant motorists and businesses needed to adapt their approach.
“The data shows that vehicle crime continues to evolve, which means motorists and businesses need to evolve their response too,” he said.
“Understanding where, when, and how these crimes occur is one of the most effective ways to reduce risk.”
Ngcobo added that vehicle crime could have consequences for businesses that extend well beyond the value of a stolen vehicle.
“Downtime, service disruptions, and lost revenue often represent a far greater cost, making prevention, driver safety and rapid recovery critical to business continuity,” he said.
Loading ...