We all know that the roads in South Africa are pothole-ridden, bumpy, congested and generally in a bad state. Unfortunately for fleet owners, these roads are damaging your trucks, and you may think there’s nothing you can do about it, but with Cartrack, you can save your fleet from these unkempt roads.
The main challenges faced by South Africa's road transport infrastructure are a huge maintenance backlog and a major lack of funding. One of the biggest contributors to the roads deteriorating is the shift from railway freight to the roads.
The current challenges in transportation are severe traffic congestion, infrastructure (roads and traffic signs) falling apart, the rising fuel costs, and the lack of maintenance and accessibility to safe public transport.
You can navigate bad roads and protect your trucks with advanced technology. AI cameras can spot distracted driving and speeding. When your drivers aren’t keeping their eyes on the road or are speeding, they won’t be able to avoid or slow down when the road turns into pothole heaven. Route optimisation will also give your drivers the best and safest route!
So according to a study, maintenance and repair costs go up by 120% per year when a truck is driving on bad roads. In total, poorer road conditions could result in an increase of 10% in the total logistics costs of your company.
Cartrack’s fleet management system can help fleets navigate bad road conditions with:
Yes, you can, but you must make sure that you and your driver do the following:
Remember, if you claim from your insurance, you can't claim from SANRAL or the municipality.
Unfortunately, it probably won’t. This is because the General Fuel Levy (GFL) goes directly to the National Revenue Fund, which is used for general government expenditure.
Road accidents in South Africa are most commonly caused by human factors. This includes drunk driving, speeding, reckless driving, distracted driving, fatigue, and pedestrians jaywalking. Poor road infrastructure, such as potholes, broken robots and unroadworthy vehicles, also plays a major role.
You’ll have to visibly check the truck to see if your driver hit a pothole. Look for tyre or suspension damage. See how the truck is driving. Is it pulling to one side? The most accurate way to know if your truck hit a pothole is to get a fleet management system. At Cartrack, we get data from an accelerometer that’ll pick up if your vehicle hits something, and you’ll get an instant alert.
It depends on what your idea of saving money looks like. A ‘rugged’ vehicle has a high resale value, generally requires less frequent maintenance and lasts longer. However, they're very expensive to purchase, consume much more fuel, and when they do require maintenance and repairs, their parts are very expensive.
Yes, having a driver system like ADAS and a telematics system will help your insurance claims. These work together and provide exact data when an accident is caused by poor road conditions and broken or lacking infrastructure. This data can prove that an accident was not caused by driver negligence and assist your claim.
Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and parts of KwaZulu-Natal are considered the cities with the worst roads and infrastructure. Cape Town is considered the city in South Africa with the worst traffic.
