30/10/2026
R2.25 of every litre of petrol goes to the Road Accident Fund, which compensates people hurt in crashes.
The Finance Minister says government must find a way to phase out the fuel levy, and the AA has backed scrapping the RAF levy with it. Cheaper fuel would be good news for every household and every fleet in the country.
But changing who pays won’t, on its own, mean fewer crashes.
“Most of the crashes we see didn’t happen because a driver couldn’t handle the car,” says our Group CEO, Eugene Herbert. “They happened because of a decision, like following too closely, picking up a phone, driving tired or going too fast for the conditions.”
For a fleet of 100 petrol vehicles filling up once a week, the RAF levy alone comes to about R585,000 a year. That’s before a single repair, insurance excess or day lost to its own crashes.
Fleets pay for crashes at the pump, and again when their own vehicles are involved. That money does more good stopping the next crash than paying for the last one.
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Thanks to the Automobile Association of South Africa for opening up this conversation.
