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Road Accidents Scotland 2002

Accident Costs

Accident Costs: Details of Calculations

Tables 9 and 10 below provide the Department for Transport's estimates of the values assigned to the cost of road casualties and accidents in Great Britain in 2002, for use in cost-benefit analysis of the prevention of road casualties and accidents in road schemes.

The valuation of casualty costs calculated for Great Britain for all levels of severity are now based on a "willingness to pay human cost" approach. This is intended to encompass all aspects of the costs of casualties including both the human cost and the direct economic cost. The human cost covers an amount to reflect the pain, grief and suffering to the casualty, relatives and friends, and, for fatal casualties, the intrinsic loss of enjoyment of life over and above the consumption of goods and services. The economic cost covers loss of output due to injury and medical costs.

The cost of an accident also includes:

i. the cost of damage to vehicles and property; and
ii. the cost of police and insurance administration.

Further information about the methods used by DfT to produce the estimates shown in Tables 9 and 10 is available from:-

Road Safety Branch 4
Department for Transport
Zone 2/09
Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
LONDON
SW1P 4DR
(Tel: 020 7944 2040)

The cost per accident in Scotland and the total cost of all accidents in Scotland are given in Tables 11 and 12 opposite. These costs for Scotland are calculated using the casualty costs for Great Britain and the number of casualties by severity in accidents in Scotland. The costs per accident are higher in Scotland than in Great Britain because Scotland has more casualties per accident and has a higher proportion of fatal and serious casualties in an accident.

Also estimated are the number of "damage only" accidents and their average costs.

The estimated total costs at 2002 prices of accidents in 2001 and earlier years are calculated by applying the estimated "per accident" costs for 2002 to the number of accidents of each type in 2001 and earlier years.

Table 10
Costs per accident by element of cost and severity for Great Britain () at 2002 prices

Table 11
Cost per accident by road type and severity in Scotland () for 2002 at 2002 prices

Table 12
Total estimated accident costs in Scotland ( million) at 2002 prices, by severity
Years: 1992 to 2002

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