A study was conducted for AAA by Cambridge Systematics. This study discovered the total cost of motor vehicle crashes, for one year, in the United States. From there, it was possible to break down that figure into what the average cost of a crash would be per person.
AAA is the abbreviation for the American Automobile Association. They provide roadside service to their members who are having car trouble. They sell auto insurance, as well as a variety of other types of insurance. I have had many people tell me that I should go get AAA, in addition to my current auto insurance policy.
A study was done by Cambridge Systematics for AAA. This study looked at the relationship between traffic congestion and car crashes in order to find out the relative economic impact. The study used figures that were provided by the Texas Transportation Institute in their 2010 mobility report data.
Some of the data that was used to determine the cost of car crashes came from data from the Federal Highway Administration. They assign a dollar amount to medical and emergency services, lost earnings, household production, property damage, lost quality of life, and more.
The results are rather interesting. Overall, the study found that the total cost of automobile crashes in the United States is $299.5 billion. This equates to an annual cost per person of $1,522.
The researchers also looked at the financial costs related to traffic congestion. That amount totaled to $97.7 billion. This means that the cost of crashes is three times higher than the cost of traffic congestion. The cost of traffic congestion divides out to $590 per person in a year.
People who encounter a lot of traffic congestion every day, as they head out to work, and drive back home after work, are likely to identify traffic congestion more expensive than car crashes. Statistically, that is not the reality. Car crashes actually generate higher costs than traffic congestion does.
Earlier this year, a different study was done by Insurance.com. That study determined how much a person spends on car insurance in a lifetime. On average, American’s spend $84,388 on car insurance over the course of a lifetime.
This figure was based on the assumption that a person first purchased car insurance when he was 21, that the person got married at age 27, and briefly insured two hypothetical teenage children at some point. It also assumes that the person stopped driving, forever, when he became 75 years old.
These are two completely different studies. I don’t think it would be accurate to try and work out how much of that lifetime cost for car insurance equates to the amount it costs each person, each year, for car crashes.
Image by Toby Oxborrow on Flickr