It's About Time Traffic Engineers Included the Cost of Traffic Violence in Their Calculations
Guest post by Andy Boenau, author of Urban Speakeasy with Andy Boenau
Andy Boenau is making propagandart to save the human race. He's under the impression that a career arc of traffic engineer to urban planner to filmmaker is totally normal. [He’s almost as exasperated as I am — Ed.]
If they start calculating the death toll, they’ll stop building deadly projects
It's time that engineers start factoring in the true cost of traffic violence when calculating the return on investment for proposed infrastructure projects.
Have you ever stopped to consider how much you're truly worth? Your worth is perceived differently by various parties—your loved ones, your employer, and your insurance agent all have different values assigned to your well-being.
Every single day, about 100 Americans lose their lives in car accidents. 100 families receiving the heart-wrenching news that their loved one will never come home. While these deaths are undeniably tragic on a personal level, there is also a substantial economic cost. It might feel insensitive to place a monetary value on human life, but it could be an effective way to halt dangerous transportation projects before they move beyond the drawing board.
Traffic engineers claim that they prepare a comprehensive benefit-cost analysis. They don’t. They’re either lying or they don’t know there’s a gaping hole in their spreadsheets.
Calculating the cost of lost productivity
According to the National Safety Council, the collective cost of motor vehicle deaths, injuries, and property damage in 2019 alone reached a staggering $474.4 billion. The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety conducted a study in 2018, revealing that motor vehicle crash injuries, both on and off the job, cost $72.2 billion.
On-the-job crashes cost employers an average of $26,081 per crash. Employers are dealing with expenses of $66,119 per million vehicle-miles traveled and $78,418 per injury.
When factoring in insurance expenses, employer healthcare spending for motor vehicle crashes amounted to a staggering $19 billion in 2018. Another $17 billion was spent on sick leave, life insurance, and disability insurance for crash victims.
The value of a life
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) suggests that the statistical value of a human life is approximately $10 million. This means that preventing a single traffic fatality through a traffic calming project yields an economic benefit of $10 million. That’s a broad estimate, but it’s still a meaningful starting point. For more in-depth information on their methodology, take a look at this summary from USDOT's chief economist.
Counting the costs
Suppose your city is pushing a major road project aimed at reducing congestion and enhancing safety. Their promotional materials are filled with phrases like "corridor improvement" and "signal upgrades." You can't help but wonder about the potential benefits of a roundabout instead of a colossal intersection with dual left-turn lanes and all the conventional features.
You recall that one-third of traffic crash deaths occur at signalized intersections, so you do some number crunching based on USDOT material freely available online.
Converting a signalized intersection to a roundabout can reduce fatal and injury crashes by 78%.
The average number of fatalities and injuries at signalized intersections each year is around 7,500. That's 5,800 lives saved or serious injuries prevented annually.
Your local corridor project has a cluster of signalized intersections that account for 10 fatalities and 30 injuries in the last 10 years. Converting those signals to roundabouts could have saved 8 lives and 23 injuries.
That’s $80,000,000 lost to fatalities and $1,803,614 lost to injuries.
Like I said, those aren’t calculations being performed for the so-called improvement projects.
“It’s too expensive,” says the local representative. But if a million-dollar intersection prevents just one fatal crash, the DOT has already more than made up for the cost in economic benefits. Share this type of math homework with your local politicians, and pitch it as an opportunity for them to be a genuine hero. Work together to reduce these exorbitant costs, not to mention the immeasurable social harm of traffic violence.
Reducing the costs
The most effective way to curtail the expenses associated with crashes is by preventing them altogether. Countless prevention strategies exist, so the only excuses are poor excuses.
Be noisy about this stuff. Decision-makers need talking points, so raise awareness to hold traffic engineers to account for the comprehensive costs of traffic violence.
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