Allocating the Costs of Motor Vehicle Crashes Between Vehicle Types

Abstract

When a truck and an automobile are involved in a crash, the harm to occupants tends to vary with the weight of the vehicles involved. In determining the appropriate level of government expenditures for traffic safety, costs in multivehicle crashes involving different vehicle types must be allocated between occupants and nonoccupants of a particular vehicle type. Four methods for allocating costs among different vehicle types are considered, corresponding to different perspectives, including that of occupants of a vehicle and that of society under different property right assignments. Costs based on the four allocation methods for the United States as a whole and per vehicle mile are also estimated. The allocation method was found to have large effects on the relative magnitude of costs.

The optimal gas tax for California

“…caused by sudden disruptions in the supply of imported oil to the U.S. Mayeres, Oschelen and Proost , 1996;Miller et al, 1998;Parry, 2004).…”

Automobile Externalities and Policies

“…But for our purposes, we are interested in how (marginal) external costs differ across vehicle types; external costs are quite different from total injuries as they exclude own-driver injury risks, but include property damage, travel delay, and other costs listed in Table 2. Surprisingly, studies that allocate injuries from crash data to different vehicle types involved in crashes, and quantify costs using components in Table 2, find only modest differences in external costs per mile driven between cars and light trucks (US FHWA 1997, Miller et al 1998, Parry 2004. However a potential problem with these studies is that they only control for, at most, a very limited number of non-vehicle characteristics, such as driver age and region; ideally, one would also control for speed, negligence, gender, road class, weather, seatbelt use, etc.…”

“…Productivity effects are internal for own-driver injury risks but not for pedestrians. Recent studies using this general approach put the marginal external costs for the United States at around 2 to 7 cents per mile (US FHWA 1997, Miller et al 1998, Parry 2004). This range is about 13-44% of the average social cost per vehicle mile, which is broadly consistent with European studies (e.g., Lindberg 2001, Mayeres et al 1996.…”

Comparing alternative policies to reduce traffic accidents

“…Comparing with our values for η G , this means that around 30-45% of η G reflects reduced driving, and 55-70% increases in fuel efficiency from vehicle substitution and long-run technological improvements. 28 Retail prices have varied between $1.10 and $1.83 per gallon between 1996 and 2002. See http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/gas1.html.…”

“…In a widely cited study, Miller [26] estimated that motor vehicle accidents little evidence on how the external costs per mile differ across vehicle and driver types, and how they correlate with existing insurance premiums. 5 One exception is a careful analysis of crash data by Miller et al [28]; they find that external accident costs are similar for cars and light trucks. This paper uses a similar methodology to estimate external costs, though we distinguish five (rather than two) vehicle classes, different driver groups, and we plug the estimates into formulas for the welfare effects of alternative mileage-reducing policies.…”