For tens of thousands of people each year, motor vehicle crashes bring untold pain. But while the suffering associated with crash-related injuries and deaths is incalculable, the costs are not.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slaps a staggering price tag — more than $99 billion in a one-year period — on the cost of medical care and losses in productivity associated with injuries from motor vehicle crashes. The cost associated with direct medical care accounted for $17 billion, the study found, which translates to about $500 for each licensed driver in the United States.
“Every 10 seconds, someone in the United States is treated in an emergency department for crash-related injuries, and nearly 40,000 people die from these injuries each year,” said Grant Baldwin, director of CDC’s Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “This study highlights the magnitude of the problem of crash-related injuries from a cost perspective, and the numbers are staggering.”
In compiling the study, researchers used 2005 data, noting that it provided the most current snapshot of national fatal and nonfatal injury and cost data from multiple sources.
According to the study, more than $70 billion, or about 70 percent of costs, were associated with fatal and nonfatal crash-related injuries sustained by people riding in vehicles such as cars and light trucks. Costs associated with crashes sustained by motorcyclists, pedestrians and bicyclists amounted to $12 billion, $10 billion and $5 billion respectively, the study said.
The study, published in the August issue of Traffic Injury Prevention, noted the costs related to fatal motor vehicle-related injuries totaled $58 billion. Nonfatal injuries resulting in hospitalization rang up a $28 billion tab while the cost of injuries to people treated in emergency departments and released came to $14 billion.
Additionally, more men were killed and injured in motor vehicle crashes than women, at a rate of 70 percent to 52 percent. Injuries and deaths among men represented 74 percent, or $74 billion, of all costs, researchers noted.
The risks were also greater for teens and young adults, who accounted for 14 percent of the U.S. population but made up 28 percent of all fatal and nonfatal motor vehicle injuries and 31 percent of the costs, or $31 billion, the researchers found.
Crashes involving motorcycles or pedestrians also come with a huge price tag. According to the study, motorcyclists made up 6 percent of all fatalities and injuries but accounted for 12 percent of the costs, likely due to the severity of their injuries, the researchers said. Also, pedestrians, who have no protection when they are hit by vehicles and are often severely injured, made up 5 percent of all injuries but 10 percent of total costs.
Because motor vehicle crash injuries and deaths and the associated costs are preventable, the study recommended strategies for prevention, including graduated driver licensing policies, child safety seat education programs, primary seat belt laws and sobriety checkpoints.
The United States has fallen far behind the traffic safety gains of many other comparable countries, the study said. For example, France, Canada and Australia exhibited similar road traffic death rates to the United States in the early 1980s, but have since made considerable progress in reducing the number of lives lost on their roads. Death rates in many nations have fallen more than 60 percent since the early 1980s, the report said, dropping in some cases from as high as 23 to 25 deaths per 100,000 people to seven to nine deaths per 100,000 people. In contrast, death rates in the United States have fallen 35 percent in the same time period, with death rates now at about 15 to 16 per 100,000 population.
According to the World Health Organization, road traffic injuries are the ninth leading cause of death worldwide, and by 2030 are expected to become the fifth leading cause of death, outranking diabetes, HIV/AIDS and hypertensive heart disease.
For more on the study, search for the Traffic Injury Prevention journal online.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
