How bad is the crime? I've talked to a few who've lived there but they always tell me the crime forced them to move out. Do hijackings at robots still happen often?
I have never been hijacked, robot or otherwise. The worst that happened to me was getting mugged in a dark alley around 7pm in Cape Town. Rely shouldn't have been walking around that neighbourhood well-dressed.
In general I leave my laptop in the trunk and ladies leave their bags there too. The most common form of traffic light theft is "smash and grab" which is entirely mitigated by getting the right kind of windows and not leaving your stuff on the seat/where it's visible.
In ZA 80% of the crime is committed against poor people, which really sucks but which realistically means that only 20% of the crime stats actually would apply to the affluent/expats. Ultimately you need to be a little more vigilant and aware, but not much more than you would be in any major city.
That's quite a statement that the experience of waiting at a stoplight would be improved by investing in special windows for your car. Does this to all of ZA or just Cape Town?
I would recommend this to anyone driving in South Africa. I’ve never been smash and grabbed because I generally pay attention to anyone approaching my car and try to make eye contact. Usually people are zoning out on their phone or whatever and make easy targets.
In terms of my personal experiences with crime I was mugged once when I was a teenager, and had a friend killed when he tried to stop a mugging. But neither have made me want to leave, the murder made me consider it, but this is still my home, and once you experience a Cape Town summer you'll understand why so many people come for a few weeks and end up staying a few years...
In terms of crime in Joburg, that's a whole other ball game. It can be wild up there, and for that reason I wouldn't move there. Although the pay is far better than Cape Town, it's nowhere near as idyllic place to live as Cape Town is.
But.
The fear of being mugged or shot at always lingered - always. When you sleep, when you drive, when you go for a jog. We stayed in one of the expensive parts of Joburg (Sandhurst / Hyde Park) and still that did not help feel secure. Next door neighbors got shot at. The neighbors on the other side got their gate rammed in and plundered.
Our company refused to give us our rental allowance if the property did not have 24/7 surveillance including armed guards.
We did not mind losing our possessions, but a break in would have affected my wife for life. As sad as we were to leave Joburg, and South Africa in general, we were happy we left safe.
From experience (several yrs ago), you keep a gun in your lap when you drive the car. All the time.
I’m a South African and out of all my friends and family only one carries a gun and never in his lap.