The value of preventing a death on the road is 2 million euro

The General Directorate of Traffic, through the National Road Safety Observatory, has presented the results of the study to update the value of preventing a death and a non-fatal injury in traffic incidents. The study has been carried out by the University of Murcia in collaboration with the company Sigma Dos to carry out the surveys.

The report concludes that the value of avoiding or preventing a death in a traffic incident is 2 million euro, taking into account that 1.9 million is the estimated value of a statistical life, a figure to which the costs have been added of net production lost as a result of premature mortality, as well as medical and emergency service costs.

This estimate of the value of statistical life is 46% higher than the estimate (1.3 million) in 2011, the year in which the last study was carried out. This increase is also higher than the increase in nominal GDP per capita experienced in Spain since that date, which amounts to approximately 24.5%, which suggests that, together with the increase in the standard of living, the preferences declared by the Spanish population may be reflecting greater concern about road traffic incidents.

In the case of non-fatal injuries, the report estimates the monetary value of the victim with serious injuries at 354,630 euro and that of a victim with minor injuries at 7,886 euro. When these assessments are completed with medical and ambulance costs, as well as production losses, there is a value of preventing an injury of 385,480 euro for the seriously injured and 8,506 euro for the lightly injured.

According to Álvaro Gómez, director of the DGT’s Road Safety Observatory, “this type of study helps to know the average social cost of traffic accidents, as well as to assess the road safety policies and measures to be implemented through cost-benefit analysis. The evaluation of policies is essential for efficient allocation of public resources, and spending on effective road safety measures is an investment with a high level of social and economic return.”

Methodology

The approach used to make the above estimates has been that of “willingness to pay”, that is, the maximum amount of money that society is willing to pay to travel more safely, in order to avoid a death, a seriously injured person or a slightly injured person in a traffic incident. This willingness to pay approach has been articulated through the method known as the standard continent/lottery valuation chain approach, which was already used in 2011, the year in which the previous study was carried out.

To this end, two large surveys were carried out, each involving 2,000 adults demographically and geographically representative of the general Spanish population, through computer-assisted face-to-face interviews.

Based on the responses to the first survey, the research team from the University of Murcia estimated the value of preventing a death due to a traffic incident, adding to the value of statistical life the net losses of productive capacity due to premature death of the victim, along with the costs associated with health care, which include medical expenses and ambulance transportation.

The second survey was used to estimate the value of preventing an injury, by adding the value of the non-fatal victim and the losses of productive capacity, together with the costs related to health care. Furthermore, in this second analysis, the monetary value of the quality-adjusted life year in the context of road accidents was also calculated. The quality-adjusted life year is a synthetic measure that combines quantity and quality of life.

International comparison

In the European study that compared death costs, adjusted by purchasing power parity and updated to 2022 prices in the 19 Euro Zone countries included in the European SafetyCube project, it is evident that Spain occupied thirteenth position, with a value lower than the average of the Euro Zone (2,030,020). The countries with the highest valuations were Estonia, Croatia, France and Austria, with costs per death greater than 3 million euro; while below Spain were Italy, Ireland, Germany, Cyprus, Portugal and Slovakia, with estimates of less than 1.8 million euro. When the 2023 estimate of the VPF is incorporated into this comparison, Spain closes the gap with the Euro Zone average and presents values ​​similar to countries such as Belgium or Finland.