PERSONS, VEHICLES AND ACCIDENT TYPES : SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR ACCIDENT COSTING AND COUNTERMEASURES

Specific countermeasures usually affect specific accident types. The costs of these accident types should be used in any benefit/cost studies. This paper presents the number of persons involved in specific classes of accident type with details of the number of persons in each of five casualty classes, viz, killed, hospital admission, injured required medical treatment, injured did not require treatment, and not injured. The average number of involved in each of these accident-types is also presented. A framework is thus established for applying unit costs and deriving average accident costs for specific accident types. This enables the evaluation of a countermeasure to pedestrian, pedal cyclist, vehciles from two types with above average injury costs are head-on, off-road, pedestrian, pedal cyclist, from two streets, and right-against. The accident types which give the greatest total contribution to annual accident costs appear to be vehicles from two streets and the run-off road types. The variation in outcome severity by urban/rural location is marked for head-on and run-off-road, on straigth accident types. (Author/TRRL)