Economics and road safety; An exploration of external influences This exploration focuses on the relation between economic developments and road safety. It is a twofold relation: economic developments have an effect on road (un)safety and road unsafety has economic consequences. This study has explored both relations using available literature and data. An inventory has been made of the opportunities and threats for road safety that result from economic developments and the implications for policy have been listed. Road unsafety has a substantial effect on Dutch economy, in the first place because road traffic crashes result in social costs. These costs consist of expenses that are caused by crashes: medial expenses, repairs to or replacement of vehicles, and the settlement of crashes. In 2003, these expenses amounted to well over 5 billion euros, or 1% of the gross national product. There are also costs that cannot be found in macroeconomic statistics: human losses, loss of production and the costs as a result of congestions caused by traffic crashes. In 2003, these costs were approximately 7 billion euros. In the second place there are expenses made for the prevention or road traffic crashes. Their extent is not precisely known, but a rough estimate amounts to a minimum of 1.5 billion euros in 2003. In several international studies a correlation has been found between macro-economic variables, specifically unemployment and income, and road safety. These studies show that economic growth and road safety are especially related by mobility: lower unemployment or higher income rates go together with an increase in (motorized) mobility and more crashes. Some studies indicate that there may be a connection between macroeconomic variables and crash rate: a higher national income goes together with a lower crash rate. A possible explanation may be that more is spent on crash prevention when the national income is high. So far the relation between economic influences and road safety has barely been investigated in the Netherlands. The available research results and data that are available indicate that this relation may also exist in the Netherlands, but further quantitative research is required to confirm this. The international studies give no, or hardly any, explanation for the correlations between economic influences and road safety. This exploration, therefore, has made a survey for the Dutch situation of the economic factors which may possibly have an effect on road safety. A distinction has been made between the effects on crash rate and on mobility, and also between the effects on freight transport and mobility. The survey shows that economic developments in the first place have an effect on mobility, and therefore possibly also on road safety. This mainly involves growth of production and income, internationalization, (relative) decrease of transport costs and computerization. These developments result in growth of mobility. On the other hand, there are economic developments that force back transport of goods, like the increasing contribution to economy of services, new logistics concepts and other developments in logistics. Economic influences which possibly affect the crash rate have also been found. Examples are the increasing (international) competition in freight transport, growth of e-commerce, increase in the number of cars per household, and developments in income and unemployment of the young. However, for many of these developments the connection with road safety has (not yet) been empirically established. Further growth of freight transport and mobility, which is partly a consequence of economic developments, is a potential threat to road safety. This means that efforts in the field of policy and investments remain necessary to further improve road safety. The reduction of the harmful effect of road traffic crashes on the economy is an important argument to support this. Further study of the effects of economic factors on the crash rate is recommended. This makes better explanations of road safety developments possible. A second recommendation is to further investigate the size of the expenditure on prevention and to compare it to preventive expenditure in other fields. Lack of information about expenditure on prevention in the field of road safety makes it impossible to, for example, establish whether means are used in a cost-effective manner and whether improvements are possible.