The SA Institute of Race Relations says South Africa is the only country in the world where the murder rate out-strips the road fatality rate.
Institute researcher Kerwin Lebone, says the murder and road fatality rates for 2010/2011 were 32 and 28 per 100-000 people respectively.
He says international data shows that road death rates are always much higher than the murder rate throughout the world.
He says South Africa's road fatality rates ranged from three times the murder rate in the United States to ten times the murder rate in Poland.
Lebone said only Limpopo and Mpumalanga came close to matching the international norm.
"That our murder rate exceeds killings on the roads does not mean that road fatalities
are low only that our high murder rate is even higher than our high road fatality
rate," he said.
"South Africa in fact has the worst road accident death and the second worst murder figures when compared to 31 countries for road fatalities and over 190 countries for murder," said Lebone.
He said South Africa’s murder rate has come down by over 50% in the 17 years since 1994, and dropped by almost 7% last year.
