How dangerous is the N2 into Cape Town? The hotspots, the numbers and how to drive it

Karin van Aardt, 64, landed in Cape Town on 5 December 2025 to celebrate her granddaughter's birthday. Her husband had just rented a car. At a traffic light near the airport, someone smashed her window and stabbed her. He drove her to hospital, and she died of her injuries.

Police arrested a 33-year-old man a few days later. Her death came as the City of Cape Town pushed ahead with a plan for a concrete wall along the N2. Now that wall is the centre of a political row, and a post on 19 October calling it apartheid-style thinking passed 59,000 views. One reply dared the writer to drive the road at night.

So how dangerous is the N2 into Cape Town, really? We went to the police, the City, the road agency and the newspapers.

How many attacks happen on the N2 and R300?

The City's metro police say they dealt with more than 2,215 incidents on the N2 and R300 between November 2024 and November 2025, according to the Weekend Argus. About 85% were breakdowns. Think flat tyres and empty petrol tanks.

85%15%

Breakdowns (about 85%)	1,883.00	85%
Crime and other (about 15%)	332.00	15%
All incidents	2,215.00	100%

Source: Cape Town metro police data reported by the Weekend Argus, 19 Nov 2025. Split calculated from the 85% figure.

That leaves roughly 330 incidents that were not breakdowns. They include stone-throwing, robberies and shootings. The metro police say stone attacks are "sporadic" and follow no clear pattern.

Near the airport the picture is sharper. The Argus reports 42 incidents of bricks thrown at vehicles in the airport precinct between April 2024 and March 2025. In 2023, the road agency Sanral said its detection system had responded to more than 200 crime events on the N2 and R300 in a single year.

Which attacks have made the news?

Here is the record of cases we could source, with the place and the paper that reported it.

Sources: Daily Maverick (Nov 2023), Weekend Argus (Nov 2025), IOL and Sowetan (Dec 2025).

Where exactly is the danger zone?

Look at the map. Khayelitsha sits right beside the N2, with the airport, Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain around it.

Photo: Map via X

The named trouble spots in reports are these.

• The airport approach and the airport precinct. Cape Town Tourism flags the Airport Approach Road off-ramp as high risk. It is where the 42 brick attacks were counted.
• Borcherds Quarry. The off-ramp and the road below it appear in two attacks within a month. Highway patrol officers told the mother in the December case that the same thing happened at the same spot the day before.
• Mew Way in Khayelitsha. The City describes a foiled hijacking there, where three armed suspects allegedly tried to stop cars before running from police.
• Browns Farm and Philippi. The US tourists were hit at a red light on New Eisleben Road. Police figures from 2023 ranked Philippi East eighth in the country for aggravated robbery and fourth for carjacking.
• Macassar Bridge. A councillor says rocks and concrete blocks are thrown there. An ambulance crew was hit by a block of 15 to 20 kg shortly after midnight.
• The R300. The shooting and several stone attacks happened here.

We could not source Swartklip, Spine Road or Govan Mbeki Avenue as named hotspots, so we have left them out.

What do the attackers actually do?

Reports describe the same few tricks.

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Stones and bricks are dropped or thrown from pedestrian bridges and roadsides to smash windscreens and make you stop. Objects such as rocks and concrete blocks are placed on the highway to burst tyres or force a halt. When a car stops, robbers move in with knives or guns. At traffic lights and off-ramps they smash the window and grab the bag or phone.

What time of day do the attacks happen?

Nobody publishes a clean time pattern, and the sources we found do not give one for stone attacks. The cases we could source are spread through the day.

The US couple was hit at about 8:44 in the morning. The December robbery was around 1pm. The ambulance was struck after midnight. For hijackings in general, MasterDrive chief executive Eugene Herbert says the risk is higher between 4pm and 9pm.

So the reply that dared a night drive is half right. Night is bad. Daylight is not safe either.

Who is responsible for the N2, and what is being done?

It depends on the stretch. A Sanral official said the section from the airport to the Raapenberg Interchange falls under the Western Cape Department of Infrastructure. From Raapenberg to the city centre it is the City's. Sanral says it has no authority between the airport and the city, and calls itself "not a law enforcement agency."

Sanral does run the Freeway Management System, with more than 280 cameras watched around the clock.

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The City sent 40 new metro police officers to the N2, the airport and Borcherds Quarry in October 2025. It says it patrols the N2 and R300 24 hours a day.

Then there is the wall. The City's N2 Edge project is a barrier of about 3 metres along some 9 kilometres between Langa and Firgrove, costing more than R114 million. It is still in early planning. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says it is part of a wider safety plan. Police have said the wall cannot replace patrols and investigations.

We cover the row over the wall in our story on why drivers and activists are split.

Photo: Kyknoord from Cape Town, South Africa / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Do the people of Khayelitsha suffer the same crime?

Yes, and that matters. The people who live beside the N2 are victims of the same violence, and far more often.

Police figures for July to September 2025 show 43 murders in Khayelitsha and 56 in Gugulethu, the fifth highest in the country. Critics of the wall, such as Khayelitsha resident Sanele Nkompela, say the money should go to housing and jobs. He says communities were not consulted. The City says the wall will protect motorists and also cut pedestrian deaths on the highway.

Councillor Emre Uygun, who backs barriers, says suspects often flee into nearby informal settlements before police arrive. Councillor Angus McKenzie says one group of eleven people targeted many cars. That points to a small group of criminals, not a whole community.

Newcomers land on this road first. Stats SA expects 318,953 more people to move into the Western Cape than leave it, as we reported in why everyone is moving to the Western Cape. Cape Town's other road story is the freeway that stops in mid-air.

How do you drive the N2 safely?

Use this list. It draws on the Weekend Argus, Cape Town Tourism and MasterDrive.

1. Keep moving. Do not stop for objects on the road unless you must. Slow, steer around and drive on to a safe, busy place.
2. Windows up and doors locked. Most smash-and-grabs happen at lights, off-ramps and in slow traffic.
3. Valuables in the boot. The Weekend Argus advises no phone in hand and no bag on the front seat.
4. Leave a gap. Keep space ahead of you so you can pull away. Use the middle lane where possible.
5. Check your tyres and fuel before you leave. Breakdowns are 85% of N2 incidents, and a stopped car is the target.
6. Do not trust the navigation app blindly. The 2023 tourists were sent through Philippi by Google Maps. Cape Town Tourism lists safer routes from the airport.
7. Know the numbers. The City's emergency centre is 021 480 7700 from a cellphone, charged at normal rates. From a landline it is 107, toll free.

Save 021 480 7700 in your phone before you leave. Councillor McKenzie says that after the latest incidents, no calls were logged at the Emergency Call Centre. He stressed that social media is not a reporting channel. A call puts the cameras and patrols on the exact spot, and it is the one thing the wall cannot do.