WASHINGTON, D.C.—Crowded highways, long commutes and gridlocked central business districts have become commonplace for Americans living in urban areas.
Traffic congestion results in hours of delay and wasted energy from idling cars and trucks. But some experts say there is an even worse problem on America's roadways that by comparison goes unnoticed, namely, the costs—human and financial—associated with auto crashes.
A new study commissioned by AAA and conducted by Cambridge Systematics finds that "the costs and consequences of congestion are not nearly as great as the costs and consequences of motor vehicle crashes." For the first time, motor vehicle crash costs (medical-related costs, emergency medical services, police services, vocational rehabilitation, legal costs, property damage, lost productivity and quality of life) were compared to congestion costs (lost productivity and wasted fuel).
The conclusion of the report, "Crashes vs. Congestion: What's the Cost to Society?," is that the societal costs of the annual carnage on the nation's roadways is $164.2 billion, nearly two and half times the $67.6 billion price for congestion. The report comes at a time when Congress prepares to reauthorize federal transportation programs in 2009.
President and CEO of AAA, Robert L. Darbelnet, says that the nearly 43,000 annual deaths resulting from auto crashes along with the 2½ million injuries barely phases the public, and that has got to change.
"If there were two jumbo jets crashing every week, the government would ground all planes until we fixed the problem. Yet, we've come to accept this sort of death toll with car crashes," said Darbelnet at a news conference, March 5, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
The average cost of a fatality is $3,246,192 and the average cost of an injury is $68,170, in 2005 dollars, according to the Federal Highway Administration, cited in the report.
Why is there disproportionate attention given to congestion and not more concern shown for traffic deaths and injuries? Apparently, elected and appointed officials often hear concerns over congestion expressed by their constituents and the media, says the report.
"Safety, on the other hand, receives far less attention despite the fact that literally millions of crashes occur each year," says the report. Crashes affect a few people each time they occur. Because most Americans regard themselves as good drivers, they do not feel they will be involved in a crash.
Congestion vs. Crashes
The analysis of Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) in 2003 of the congestion in 85 of the largest metropolitan areas was used in the AAA study. TTI computed a total of 3.7 billion vehicle-hours of delay, which equates to 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel and a congestion cost of $63 billion ( Urban Mobility Report, 2005), according to the AAA report. On a per person basis, the annual cost of congestion in these 85 metropolitan cities was $430.
By contrast, the AAA study found that the annual cost of traffic crashes per person was much larger--$1,051.
However, to get a better understanding, it is important to realize that this overall finding—$1,051 vs. $430, a ratio of 2.44—varies greatly based on the size of the urban area. For the very large metro areas (population over 3 million), the ratio is smaller at 1.84 ($962 vs. $523). For the smaller metro areas (less than 500,000) the ratio is much larger: 7.21 ($1,359 vs. $189).
The reason for the difference is that in the more rural areas, the severity of crashes tends to be much greater, although there are fewer crashes in less congested areas. The crash speeds tend to be higher as well. Moreover, congestion is much less of a problem in the smaller metropolitan areas. Altogether, these factors undoubtedly contributed to the higher ratio of the cost of crashes to congestion in the smaller urban areas.
Wide Variation in Congestion Costs
The worst case of congestion costs is the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Anna area with a total congestion cost of $9,325,000,000, followed by New York-Newark, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, and Miami. Compare these urban areas with, say, a medium size metro area (above 500,000 and below one million population), such as Austin, Texas where the annual cost was computed at $422,000,000.
The estimates in the table are based on a value of travel time delay of $14.60 per hour of person travel.
Despite the wide variation in congestion costs, crash costs trump congestion in all urban areas, even in the most congested cities like Los Angeles and New York.
Why isn't something being done to staunch the large number of crashes? One reason offered in the AAA report is the assumption that safety is always being addressed in road management and operations at the state level. Each of the 50 states has its own Department of Transportation (DOT) and "in the minds of many state DOT officials, everything the agency does, e.g., engineering design, maintenance, etc., improves road safety," says the report. The report urges this mindset to change.
The engineering standards established throughout the country may address traffic flow but only give lip service to safety. Describing the planning documents, the report observes: "Safety was often noted in the vision and perhaps in a goals statement, but the subject was rarely addressed beyond that point in the plan development process."
However, the report notes that in recent years, engineers and many others involved in the design process are realizing that "many of the [engineering and design] standards and guidelines have not been scientifically evaluated for their impact on safety," says the report.
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