Traffic accidents cost American motorists more than $160 billion a year, posing a burden twice that of traffic congestion, concludes a study conducted by Cambridge Systematics Inc. for the American Automobile Association.
According to press reports (the URL for the AAA report is not functioning this morning), car crashes cost motorists $164.2 billion a year, or about $1,050 per person. The financial burden of that wreckage far exceeds the estimated $67.6 billion annual cost for congestion. And the numbers, which take into account property damage, lost earnings, medical costs, emergency services, legal costs and travel delays, apparently don’t attribute a value to the 41,000 in lives lost in traffic accidents every year.
AAA recommends that lawmakers make safety a higher priority in transportation planning through measures such as stiffer laws on drunk driving and enforcement of seat-belt laws.
The findings also would seem to suggest that road-improvement projects with a safety emphasis might offer a superior economic return — not to mention save more lives and prevent more suffering — than projects built for congestion-relief purposes. Any Return on Investment analysis on competing road projects needs to take into account not just the cost of congestion and travel delays but traffic accidents. (Why don’t the auto insurance companies weigh in on the transportation funding debate?)
I must confess, I have largely neglected this angle in my coverage of transportation issues. I’ve heard Virginia Department of Transportation officials speak of safety, but I always thought of it as a ritual incantation. Thanks to this study, I can now say, “I get it.”
