Cost of crashes related to road conditions, United States, 2006

Zaloshnja, Eduard; Miller, Ted R.

Affiliations

¹Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Calverton, Maryland

Abstract

This is the first study to estimate the cost of crashes related to road conditions in the U.S. To model the probability that road conditions contributed to the involvement of a vehicle in the crash, we used 2000-03 Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS) data, the only dataset that provides detailed information whether road conditions contributed to crash occurrence. We applied the logistic regression results to a costed national crash dataset in order to calculate the probability that road conditions contributed to the involvement of a vehicle in each crash. In crashes where someone was moderately to seriously injured (AIS-2-6) in a vehicle that harmfully impacted a large tree or medium or large non-breakaway pole, or if the first harmful event was collision with a bridge, we changed the calculated probability of being road-related to 1. We used the state distribution of costs of fatal crashes where road conditions contributed to crash occurrence or severity to estimate the respective state distribution of non-fatal crash costs. The estimated comprehensive cost of traffic crashes where road conditions contributed to crash occurrence or severity was $217.5 billion in 2006. This represented 43.6% of the total comprehensive crash cost. The large share of crash costs related to road design and conditions underlines the importance of these factors in highway safety. Road conditions are largely controllable. Road maintenance and upgrading can prevent crashes and reduce injury severity.

Cited Works (5)

Year	Entry
2002	Blincoe LJ, Seay AG, Zaloshnja E, Miller TR, Romano EO, Luchter S, Spicer RS. The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes 2000. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S Dept of Transportation; May 2002. NHTSA Technical Report DOT HS 809 446.
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2004	Zaloshnja E, Miller T, Romano E, Spicer R. Crash costs by body part injured, fracture involvement, and threat-to-life severity, United States, 2000. Accid Anal Prev. May 2004;36(3):415-427.

Cited By (4)

Year	Entry
2011	Miller TR, Bhattacharya S, Zaloshnja E, Taylor D, Bahar G, David I. Costs of crashes to government, United States, 2008. In: 55th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 3-5, 2011; Paris, France.347-355.
2011	Miller TR, Bhattacharya S, Zaloshnja E. Fruits of 20 years of highway safety legislative advocacy in the United States. In: 55th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 3-5, 2011; Paris, France.357-363.
2011	Spicer RS, Miller TR, Hendrie D, Blincoe LJ. Quality-adjusted life years lost to road crash injury: updating the injury impairment index. In: 55th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 3-5, 2011; Paris, France.365-377.
2013	Zaloshnja E, Miller TR, Blincoe LJ. Costs of alcohol-involved crashes, United States, 2010. In: 57th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 22-25, 2013; Quebec City, QC.3-12.