Has the situation with road accidents deteriorated?

Has the situation with road accidents deteriorated?
This article has been written for Albanian Free Press newspaper and www.afp.al

By Eduard Zaloshnja

Figures supplied by the Institute of Statistics indicate that the number of road accidents grew by 7.6% during the month of July, compared to the same month a year ago. If we refer only to this figure, it seems that the situation with road accidents has deteriorated. If we look into other data relating to accidents, we will see that the number of deaths fell by 18.5% and the number of people who remained wounded fell by 1.6%. Within this last category, the number of people who remained seriously wounded dropped, while the number of people with slight injures went up.

In other words, judging by these statistics, it can be said that while the number of accidents went up in July, the number of serious accidents went down. However, it is hard to determine if the situation with road accidents improved or deteriorated in July. What’s more, we cannot even determine what may have been the reason for this change of situation.

In the majority of the countries of the world, authorities use the synthetic indicator of the total cost of accidents to analyze car accidents.

Besides human suffering that car accidents cause, they also cause a significant economic cost to society. Each accident bears the cost of road police that reaches the scene; the cost of transporting victims to the hospital, the cost of offering medical care to the wounded; the damage caused to the cars; delays in traffic which make people spend more time and fuel; and also different administrative costs.

Up until today, due to the lack of detailed data, no economist has managed to make an accurate assessment of the cost of car accidents to the Albanian society. Perhaps, we need to wait several other years before such data are available for economists. Meanwhile, an approximate assessment may be done by adapting costs in other countries with Albania’s conditions.

For this, an example may be used; a study on the economic costs of road accidents by Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation*. According to this study, in 2010, the average cost of a road accident to the American society was around 87 thousand USD.

To convert this cost into a figure which would make sense for Albania’s conditions (as it was mentioned above), several adjustments are necessary.

First of all, these adjustments must consider the figures concerning the deaths, those who remain seriously injured, those with slight injuries and those who do not suffer injuries. In Albania, this seems to be leaning toward deaths and serious injuries.

Secondly, adjustments must take into account the differences in the cost of treating the injured ones and this figure is 8 times higher than in the US.

Thirdly, they must also take into account the difference in the cost of replacing or repairing cars, which is around 4 times higher than the US.

Lastly, in order to convert the value of goods which are not produced as a result of an injury or wasting time at the time of the accident, the adjustments must also take into account the average value of products or services which a worker produces in a day in each country.

After these adjustments, a car accident taken place in July has had a cost of 12 100 USD (with the 2010 currency exchange rate) for the Albanian society. Meanwhile, at the same month a year ago, its cost was 13 400 USD. In total, the cost of road accidents for Albanian society was 2,4 million USD in July of this year, around 100 thousand USD less than a year ago.

For the simple reader, it may be difficult to understand how much effort is needed to an economist to come up with these approximate figures, but it is not that difficult to understand their significance because in a poor country such as Albania, everyone understands what such cost means.

By taking this fact for granted, we still need to come up with ways on how to reduce the economic cost of road accidents in Albania and to what extent.

In order for the economic cost of road accidents to fall, two approaches may be used. First, the number of road accidents may be reduced. Secondly, to reduce the extent of physical damages for people involved in accidents.

The first approach requires an improvement of roads and road signs, compliance with road regulation and a significant reduction of drink-driving. The second one requires the use of seat belts and the special seats for children up to the age of 5 and also the equipment of the car with protective airbags.

Some of these measures are expensive to be implemented, but some of them have a very small cost. So, if every road user uses the seat belt, the number of deaths from accidents drops by almost 45% while the number of people who suffer serious injures drops by 28%. In economic terms, this means that the effect in the total cost of accidents would be a drop of around 30%.

Similarly, if the average speed of cars around the country goes down by 5 km/hour, the number of accidents and their total cost would reduce by 25%. Meanwhile, a 50% drop in the number of drunk drivers, would reduce the bill that Albanian society pays for road accidents by 25%.

In order for society to make such savings, the government only needs to make modest expenses to make sure the road code is being complied with and also hold a public campaign to raise awareness. In other words, it needs to think a little deeper on the life and the wellbeing of its citizens.

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*The study has been made by a department of Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation based in Washington, specialized in economic analyses of accidents on the road, work and home. The author is a scientific employee of that department.

Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy

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