More than ten years ago, a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) examined the economic impact of car accidents in the United States. They found that U.S. citizens paid over $871 billion in economic costs and societal harm. These numbers included $277 billion in direct economic costs paid by taxpayers averaging $900 per person in the United States.
While taxpayers are not always directly responsible for paying all these costs, about 75 percent of the $277 billion is paid by individuals. This is often directly through taxes and insurance premiums or in less clear-cut ways like congestion costs, such as time wasted in traffic, added gas consumption, and environmental degradation. Once you extrapolate this data to consider how what the numbers might look like over a decade later, the thought is staggering.
According to the NHTSA Acting Administrator David Friedman, “This report underscores the importance of our safety mission and why our efforts and those of our partners to tackle these important behavioral issues and make vehicles safer are essential to our quality of life and our economy.”
The NHTSA is using this data to show how much better safety measures could affect the economy. However, there are separate ways to minimize your negative impact on the economy (and be safer as well).