Nigeria has the largest number of cars on the road in Africa, followed by South Africa. There are around 12.5m registered vehicles on Nigeria’s roads, or one for every 12 people. Although South Africa has fewer vehicles – 9.6m, the ratio of vehicles to people is one in five. Liberia is the only country with a smaller ratio – one in four – and 1.03 million vehicles. The country, however, has only around 1000km of tarred roads – out of a total of 10 000km of public roads, according to World Health Organisation statistics. Egypt is next after Nigeria and South Africa in terms of the total number of vehicles on the road at 5.9m (ratio of 1/14), followed by Morocco (2.8m vehicles and 1/11), and Tunisia (1.5m and 1/7). The country with the highest ratio of people to cars is Mauritania, on 1/90, followed by Uganda on 1/72. Economic reforms and stability are, however, seeing the country’s car parc growing by around 18% a year.
