PDA

View Full Version : According to the AAA


NEOWatcher
05-March-2008, 02:14 PM
They usually end up in the news quoting the gas prices (which we can get on almost every street corner anyway) or to tell us that a lot of people are travelling on the holiday.

This one, though, is interesting, but there's a few things I think are worth mentioning.
AAA: Crashes cost U.S. motorists billions (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/05/crashes.costs.ap/index.html)

Per-driver cost of crashes twice the cost of traffic gridlock, new study says
I'm surprised the gap isn't larger. But; I guess the high volume makes up for the nickle and dime costs of delays.
Residents of small cities face larger per-person cost, study found
I would be curious to know if it is because there's more rural areas around a small cities with more dangerous roads and higher speeds resulting in more costly individual accidents.
To calculate the crash costs, researchers took into account factors such as property damage, lost earnings, medical costs, emergency services, legal costs and travel delays.
Isn't that the congestion? I wonder how they distinguish overall congestion, congestion due to volume, congestion due to accidents.

One thing that they don't mention is the relationship between this and insurance rates. While this might be good from an independent cross check point of view, I'm sure the insurance companies all have a very close eye on the numbers.

Matherly
05-March-2008, 02:19 PM
Isn't that the congestion?

It dosn't have to be. It could just be calculating delays incurred on the party/paries in the accident.

For example, 2 Mondays ago I totaled my car on the way to work (nobody injured). Between, the accindent report, getting the car towed, getting a scrpper to buy it, getting a rental car, etc. I ended up not going into the office that day. The cost of the day is probibly factored into the cost of the accident.

NEOWatcher
05-March-2008, 02:32 PM
It dosn't have to be. It could just be calculating delays incurred on the party/paries in the accident....
Yes; that's one of the reasons I brought it up.
They do say lost earnings (which could apply to your example) and they specifically say travel delays (which I'm not sure what they mean).

In other words, where do those numbers fall? Around here, I see a lot of congestion due to accidents, and I would be curious to know the impact (pun intended).