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Road crash costs

How much do road crashes 'cost' and why do we want to know?

Crashes lead to all sorts of social costs such as medical costs, production loss, human costs, material damage, settlement costs, and traffic jam costs. In 2003 these costs amounted to €12.3 billion in the Netherlands, which is 2.3% of the gross national product. No study of the costs has been carried out since then. Based on partly provisional data on the number of road deaths, in-patients, and hospital Accident and Emergency (A&E) department patients, and using the above list of costs per casualty, and inflation figures, SWOV has made an indication of the costs in 2004 and 2005. According to this calculation, the total costs in 2005 were more than €0.5 billion less than in 2003.

The largest items in 2003 were human costs (€5.5 billion) and material damage (€3.9 billion). In 2003 production loss and settlement costs were both €1.3 billion; these were followed by medical costs (€230 million) and traffic jam costs as a result of a crash (€125 million).

Insight in road safety costs is used in the preparation and assessment of the national road safety policy. This information also makes it possible to compare the costs of other policy areas such as environmental policy, public health, or other sectors of safety policy.

Another important use is the cost-benefit analysis, in which the costs of each casualty saved or crash prevented are used to assess road safety investments.

For more details:

Fact sheet Road crash costs (pdf)

Fact sheet Cost-benefit analysis of road safety measures (pdf)

Fact sheet The valuation of human costs of road deaths (pdf)