The data suggests this “seasonal dip” isn’t necessarily due to a change in criminal intent, but rather a change in operational patterns. With the closure of schools, offices, and commercial hubs, the sheer volume of targets on the road, and where they are parked, shifts fundamentally at year-end.

The Business vs. Personal Risk Profile

The primary driver behind the December decline was a significant 35% reduction in the theft of business-owned vehicles. This aligns with the slowdown of corporate fleets and logistics operations during the holidays.

However, the risk profile between business and personal vehicles remains distinct:

• Business Vehicles: These are twice as likely to be hijacked than stolen, representing a high-risk “active” threat for commercial operators.
• Personal Vehicles: The split is nearly even, with a slight tilt toward theft (52%) over hijacking (48%).

Regional Anomalies: The Western Cape Outlier

While Gauteng followed the national downward trend, the Western Cape presented a localised spike in crime involving business-owned vehicles. During December, the province recorded its highest levels of both hijacking and theft in the commercial sector.

Analysts attribute this to the Western Cape’s high hospitality and tourism activity during the summer. As deliveries surge to keep up with tourist demand in hotspots, opportunistic criminals pivot their focus toward these active commercial veins, a trend corroborated by recent SAPS quarterly statistics.

Timing the Threat: Peak Hours for Theft and Hijacking

The Tracker Index provides a specific breakdown of when vehicles are most at risk, revealing that criminals operate on highly structured schedules:

The data indicates that hijackings are largely a weekday phenomenon, peaking during the late afternoon and evening “commute” windows. Conversely, vehicle theft peaks during the weekend for personal vehicles and at the close of the business week for commercial fleets.

Recovery and Arrest Metrics

Despite the seasonal fluctuations, the high-volume nature of vehicle crime in Mzansi remains a constant. Tracker reported that in the final six months of 2025 alone, the company recovered 3590 vehicles, leading to 127 arrests and the recovery of 12 firearms.

Duma Ngcobo, Chief Operating Officer at Tracker, warned that while the numbers might dip periodically, vigilance shouldn’t. “While schools and workplaces close, crime hasn’t stopped,” Ngcobo noted. The shift in routine – such as parking in unfamiliar holiday locations or altered driving times – can often create new vulnerabilities that criminals are quick to exploit.

The Tracker statistics indicate that the level of vehicle crime was significant in the early years of vehicle tracking, with vehicle crime activities affecting 4.5% of Tracker’s customer base at the peak in 1999. However, this rate declined as vehicle tracking matured and the insurance industry drove an increase in subscriptions to vehicle tracking services.

The level of vehicle crime has been consistent since 2012 at 0.7% of Tracker’s customer base, dropping to 0.6% for the past three years.

In the same breath, the nature of vehicle crime is changing. For the past three years, hijacking has been on the rise and is now more prevalent than theft.

Hijacking attributed a higher percentage of the Tracker vehicle crime activities in 2021 when compared to theft, averaging a 54/46% split. This is higher than the last time hijacking overtook theft, during 1999 with a 52/48% split.

What is most interesting is that the province that has always been at the forefront of vehicle crime is Gauteng, clocking an average 64% of the total vehicle crime activities in 25 years. Yet, for the past three years, Gauteng has attributed a smaller percentage of the national vehicle crime activities at an average of 56%.

When examining the split between theft and hijacking at provincial level for the past year, six provinces experience a greater amount of hijacking than theft.

Subscribers to the platform are connected to a nationwide response network of over 1500 armed responders.

On receiving a location pin, the WhatsApp bot automatically sends an emergency request to surrounding security responders. The closest responder will be activated and navigated directly to the site of the emergency through accurate pinpoint geo-location.

Then the responder will receive an instant profile of the subscriber with their identity and other relevant information via an in-vehicle responder device, ensuring that they can identify the subscriber immediately. The subscriber, in turn, will receive information enabling them to track and identify the responder.

According to Aura’s website, the company’s service cuts lead time for emergency assistance by 25 minutes.

Tracker urges users to test the service by saving 0861 222 781 as a WhatsApp contact on their mobile device and typing Hi in the chat to initiate a demo.

Insights garnered from using Tracker’s vehicle tracking data and analytics from Lightstone indicate that most South Africans are doing their bit to “flatten the curve”. Nationally, South African vehicle activity had already dropped by up to 20% before the lockdown, relative to the corresponding day in early March. Vehicle activity has subsequently plummeted by 75% since the implementation of the lockdown.

The significant decline in vehicle movement during the first three days of confinement followed a slight increase in passenger vehicle activity in the two days prior. This increase in vehicle movement is likely due to citizens shopping in preparation for being confined to their homes with many having been paid on the 25th, as observed by the reports of lengthy queues and sold out stock at stores in the days before lockdown.

Drilling down to a town level in the two most compliant provinces, Sandton in Gauteng and Durbanville, Franschhoek and Noordhoek in the Western Cape show a greater than 90% reduction in vehicle movement. Conversely, the least stay at home compliance is observed in Khayelitsha and Guguletu in the Western Cape with a reduction in vehicle activity of less than 50%. Towns like Blue Downs in the Western Cape and Soweto and Katlehong in Gauteng have also only reduced their vehicle activity by between 60% and 70%.