Evaluating the costs of incidents from the public sector perspective: a road safety policy research paper

The purpose of this research was to facilitate a discussion beyond the Department for Transport, with the aim of developing focused policy actions based on the savings government departments could make by prioritising road safety in their day-to-day work. The use of casualty costs is well known and a new figure is generated every year based on a model developed in the 1990’s. In 2015 the cost of each casualty was estimated at £1.7million with the total of all incidents placed at £35 billion. The biggest element in this figure is the cost to the individuals involved, chiefly loved ones. This human cost factor has always been based on how much those relatives would be willing to pay to avoid the incident. By stripping this out the new report can show exactly which costs fall on the public purse. Breaking this down to individual government departments shows that reducing young driver crashes completely could result in savings of £227 million to the Department for Work and Pensions – a result of not needing to pay out long term benefits to injured drivers. In turn, the NHS and the police costs would be cut by £241 million. For motorcycling the DWP benefits savings are up to £219 million and NHS and police costs could be reduced by up to £162 million. For older drivers the costs are actually higher for serious injuries at £58,000 but the ever increasing numbers of older people mean that their costs to government departments cannot be ignored.

• Record URL:
  https://www.iamroadsmart.com/media-and-policy/research-and-policy/researches-list/evaluating-the-costs-of-incidents-from-the-public-sector-perspective
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Report prepared by BWB Impact for IAM Roadsmart and published in October 2016
• Corporate Authors:

  IAM Roadsmart

  London,   United Kingdom 
• Authors:
  • Clifford, J
  • THEOBALD, C
  • Atkinson, S
  • Burger, C
• Publication Date: 2016-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 39p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aged drivers; Drivers; Externalities; Motorcyclists; Policy; Social impacts; Young adults
• Uncontrolled Terms: Safe systems (road users)
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• ATRI Terms: Aged driver; Crash costs; Injury prevention; Motorcyclist; Policy; Social costs; Young driver
• Subject Areas: Finance; Policy;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01617809
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ATRI
• Created Date: Nov 28 2016 2:05PM