Financial impact of road traffic accidents on the society

Abstract

Road traffic accidents (RTA) are a global problem resulting in deaths, physical injuries, psychological problems and financial losses. These financial damages have immediate consequences and long term consequences on the victims and their families. Different countries have different impact of road traffic accidents and therefore spend dissimilar amounts in their budgets to prevent the road traffic accidents. If the financial losses due to road traffic accidents are calculated and highlighted by the researchers, the respective governments will be willing to spend higher amount in their budgets to prevent such accidents; as governments will be able to directly see the benefits to their countries, of spending higher budget amounts. Various countries are acting differently to reduce this menace of road traffic accidents and World Health Organization (WHO) is celebrating “Decade for road safety” to reduce the accidents and thus the financial loses to the society.

The Economic Impact of Road Accidents: The Case of Sri Lanka

“…The indirect costs result in loss of national income due to the loss of productivity and labour hours of the human capital (Damien, 1994;Jagnoor et al, 2015). Gorea (2016) emphasized that the financial damages of road accidents have both immediate and long-term consequences for the victims and their families. The costs of road accidents to individuals, government and private property owners, and society are significant (Wang, Quddus, & Ison, 2009).…”

An Exploratory Qualitative Study of the Prevention of Road Traffic Collisions and Neurotrauma in India: Perspectives From Key Informants in an Indian Industrial City (Visakhapatnam)

“…It was clear that prevention could be improved if the public worked together with the government. Similarly, collaborations between health, transport, law and even education sectors are thought to be important for improving prevention [39,55]. Our results show that one of the ways this was being carried out was the establishment of district road safety committees with representation from multiple stakeholders.…”

“…Less than 20 percent received any compensation from the government, employees or insurance companies [53]. This is a common scenario in India, where many families end up spending more than 10 times their monthly income for the immediate and longterm management of the RTC victim [55].…”

An exploratory qualitative study of the prevention of road traffic collisions and neurotrauma in India: perspectives from key informants in an Indian industrial city (Visakhapatnam)

“…Less than 20% received any compensation from the government, employees or insurance companies [ 70 ]. This is a common scenario in India, where many families end up spending more than 10 times their monthly income for the immediate and long-term management of the RTC casualty [ 72 ].…”