Safety

When Americans talk about transportation problems, they generally key in on traffic. Snarled highways, epic commutes and gridlocked business and commercial districts mar our suburban existence, weighing heavily upon our elected leaders, our policymakers and our families. Yet there’s a more costly problem to be addressed on America’s roads: motor vehicle crashes and vehicle-related injuries and fatalities. In 2007, traffic crashes resulted in more than 41,000 deaths and nearly 2.5 million injuries.

By any standard, traffic crashes are a tremendous public health challenge, killing more children and young adults than any other single cause in the United States. While tremendous improvements in traffic safety have been made over the last few decades, there remains much work to be done. Annual traffic fatalities have remained above 40,000 for many years. Society seems to have come to accept this “death toll” with traffic crashes. This must change.

Looking past the steep human cost, traffic crashes and other safety-related disruptions actually cost us more at the societal level than traffic congestion. Most Americans would be surprised to learn the societal costs associated with motor-vehicle crashes significantly exceed the costs of congestion.

AAA joined with Cambridge Systematics in 2008 to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of the societal costs of crashes compared to congestion. The report calculates the cost of crashes for the same metropolitan areas covered by the well-known Urban Mobility Report conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute. We found the societal cost of crashes is a staggering $164.2 billion annually in the urban areas studied, nearly two-and-a-half-times greater than the $67.6 billion price tag for congestion.

Safety improvements can provide the best of two worlds: saving lives (reducing human tragedy and economic impact) AND significantly reducing congestion. About half of all congestion is “non-recurrent” meaning it’s not due to a physical reason like bottlenecks or rush hour traffic. Non-recurrent congestion is usually due to crashes―and crashes are preventable.

Click here to read the full Crashes and Congestion report.