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The National Safety Council estimates the average costs of fatal
and nonfatal unintentional injuries to illustrate their impact on the nation's economy.
The costs are a measure of the dollars spent and income not received due to accidents,
injuries, and fatalities. It is another way to measure the importance of prevention
work.
Cost estimation is not exact; it can only be approximated. The estimates depend
on many factors. Effective with the 1993 bulletin, the Council extensively revised
its cost estimating procedures. New components were added, new benchmarks and inflation
factors adopted, and a new discount rate of 4% was assumed. For this reason, the
cost estimates shown here are not comparable to those published in the 1992 or earlier
bulletins.
This bulletin illustrates how costs can be estimated for a community or state. The
figures should be used to estimate the actual costs to the nation of deaths and
injuries. The comprehensive cost figures (discussed below) should be used for cost
benefit analyses.
Any cost estimates derived from information provided herein should be rounded to
indicate that they are only approximations, not exact figures. The recommended rule
is: for estimates less than $3,000,000, round to the nearest $100,000; for estimates
between $3,000,000 and $10,000,000, round to the nearest $500,000; for estimates
between $10,000,000 and $30,000,000, round to the nearest $1,000,000; and for estimates
greater than $30,000,000, round to the nearest $5,000,000.
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Costs of Motor-Vehicle Crashes
The calculable costs of motor-vehicle crashes are wage and productivity losses,
medical expenses, administrative expenses, motor vehicle damage, and employer costs.
(See definitions for a description of what is included in each
component.) In 2001, the costs of all these items for each death (not each fatal
crash), injury (not each injury crash), and property damage crash were:
Death
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$1,040,000
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Nonfatal Disabling Injury
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$36,500
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Property Damage Crash
(including nondisabling injuries)
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$6,500
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To estimate the costs of motor-vehicle crashes that occur while on
the job, see Costs of Other Injuries below.
Expressed on a per death basis, the cost of all motor vehicle crashes,
i.e. fatal, nonfatal injury, and property damage, was $4,680,000. This includes
the cost of one death, 54 nonfatal disabling injuries, and 256 property damage crashes
(including minor injuries). This average may be used to estimate the motor vehicle
crash costs for a state provided that there are at least 10 deaths and only one
or two occurred in each fatal crash. If fewer than 10 deaths, estimate the costs
of deaths, nonfatal disabling injuries, and property damage crashes separately.
Motor-vehicle injuries by severity
Estimates are given here of the 2001 costs by severity of injuries, as defined in
sections 2.3.4 through 2.3.6 of the Manual on Classification of Motor Vehicle Traffic
Accidents
(Sixth Edition) ANSI Standard D16.1-1996. These injury severity designations are
sometimes referred to as class "A," "B," and "C."
Incapacitating Injury (A)
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$49,500
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Nonincapacitating Evident Injury (B)
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$16,500
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Possible Injury (C)
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$9,400
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These estimates may be helpful for cities and states that do not
use the concept of “disabling injury” (see definitions). Estimates
used for deaths or property damage crashes are not changed by using these estimates.
Cost-benefit analysis
The figures above are appropriate for measuring the economic loss to a community
resulting from past motor-vehicle crashes. They should not be used, however, in
computing the dollar value of future benefits due to traffic safety measures because
they do not include the value of a person's natural desire to live longer or to
protect the quality of one's life. That is, the economic loss estimates do not include
what people are willing to pay for improved safety. Recent work has been done to
create the necessary theoretical groundwork and empirical valuation of injury costs
under the “willingness to pay” or comprehensive cost concept. Estimates in the following
section are based on the comprehensive cost concept and should be used for cost-benefit
analyses wherever feasible.
Comprehensive costs of motor-vehicle crashes
In addition to the economic cost components listed above, the following comprehensive
costs also include a measure of the value of lost quality of life which was obtained
through empirical studies of what people actually pay to reduce their safety and
health risks. In 2001 the average comprehensive costs on a per injured person
basis were:
Death
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$3,340,000
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Incapacitating Injury
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$165,000
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Nonincapacitating Evident Injury
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$42,500
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Possible Injury
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$20,200
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No Injury
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$1,900
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Since the lost quality of life figures, which are included in the
above comprehensive costs calculations, do not represent real income not received
nor expenses incurred, they should not be used to determine the pure economic impact
of past crashes.
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Costs of Other Injuries
Because obtaining information on the number and severity of nonfatal
injuries for home, public nonmotor-vehicle, and work is difficult, the best approach
is to estimate total costs on the “per death” basis using the following 2001 averages.
These averages are based on their respective injury/death ratio.
Home Injuries, per Death
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$3,600,000
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Public Nonmotor Vehicle Injuries, per Death
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$4,300,000
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Work Injuries, per Death
Without Employer Costs
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$22,700,000
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Work Injuries, per Death
With Employer Costs
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$24,900,000
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Multiplying the number of deaths by these average costs provides
an estimate of the economic loss due to both deaths and injuries in these
categories.
The $24,900,000 work injury figure with employer costs includes the monetary value
of time lost by uninjured workers who were directly or indirectly involved in injuries.
Losses due to fire are the only property damage costs included in the work, home
and public figures. No satisfactory estimates of other property damage costs are
available.
While multiple-fatality incidents, such as those discussed for motor-vehicle crashes,
probably are not common, one fire, explosion, or other disaster may account for
most of a small community's annual unintentional fatality total. When this occurs,
estimate the costs by: (1) counting only one death for the disaster using the cost
from the above figures; and (2) adding to this figure the cost for other disaster
deaths using the $1,040,000 cost per death from the motor vehicle section.
Even though a community generally will not be able to estimate the number of disabling
injuries that occur in work, home, and public nonmotor-vehicle injuries, it may
be useful to know the approximate economic loss per death and per disabling injury
in these three classes of accidents. The table below shows the per case average
cost of wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, and administrative expenses.
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Death
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Disabling Injury
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Home Injuries
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$820,000
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$9,700
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Public Nonmotor-vehicle Injuries
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$820,000
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$9,200
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Work Injuries Without Employer Costs
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$1,010,000
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$25,000
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Work Injuries With Employer Costs
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$1,020,000
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$29,000
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These figures do not include any estimate of property damage or nondisabling
injury costs and should not be used to estimate the total economic loss to
a community from these kinds of injuries.
To estimate the cost of a work-related, motor-vehicle crash (motor-vehicle crash
while on the job), use work injury costs, including employer costs, if there is
reason to believe that uninsured costs resulted from the injury. If no uninsured
costs occurred, use figures for either motor-vehicle crashes or work injuries excluding
employer costs.
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Definitions
Administrative expenses include the administrative cost of
public and private insurance, and police and legal costs. Private insurance administrative
costs are the difference between premiums paid to insurance companies and claims
paid out by them. It is their cost of doing business and is part of the cost total.
Claims paid out by insurance companies are not identified separately, as every claim
is compensation for losses such as wages, medical expenses, property damage, etc.
Disabling injury is one which results in death, some degree of permanent
impairment, or renders the injured person unable to effectively perform his or her
regular duties for a full day beyond the day of injury.
Employer costs are an estimate of the uninsured costs incurred by employers
and represents the money value of time lost by uninjured workers. It includes time
spent investigating and reporting injuries, giving first aid, production slowdowns,
training of replacement workers, and extra cost of overtime for uninjured workers.
Medical expenses include doctor fees, hospital charges, the cost of medicines,
future medical costs, and ambulance, helicopter, and other emergency medical services.
Motor-vehicle damage includes the value of property damage to vehicles from
motor-vehicle crashes. The cost of normal wear and tear to vehicles is not included.
Wage and productivity losses include the total of wages and fringe benefits
together with an estimate of the replacement-cost value of household services. Also
includes travel delay for motor-vehicle crashes.
[Note: A description of the National Safety Council's current cost estimating procedures
may be found in the Technical Appendix of Injury Facts®, 2002 Edition.]
Source: Statistics Department, National Safety Council, and Children’s Safety Network
Economics and Insurance Resource Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
Prepared by the Statistics Department, National Safety Council, 1121 Spring Lake
Drive, Itasca, IL 60143; August 2002.
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