The American Automobile Association (AAA) just published a remarkable study quantifying the economic impacts of both congestion and car crashes (PDF Link). Perhaps the most surprising element of this report on two of the car-system’s biggest drawbacks is its source: AAA is an über-powerful pro-auto and highway lobbying group that well deserves its reputation for “paving the way to hell.” Oh yeah, and they offer roadside assistance too.
The study looks at 85 metropolitan areas of various sizes across the U.S. Crash costs across the board dwarfed costs associated with congestion. The larger cities lost less to crashes, more to congestion – a ratio of 1.85 to 1 with the average person losing $962 to crashes and $523 to congestion annually. At the other extreme, residents of the smallest metro areas encountered a ratio 7 to 1, with $1,359 lost to crashes and $189 to congestion annually (graph below).
These figures only include accidents involving a death or injury. Property Damage Only crashes (PDOs) don’t even figure into the equation, and would spike the price of car crashes even higher.
Complaints about traffic have been around almost as long as the automobile itself, and it remains a hot political topic. As the AAA report, and other similar studies, note, the carnage that goes with car travel is often treated as a necessary evil for its “convenience.”
From a previous report by the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO), based on 2001 data:
An astronomical 3.5 billion hours of people’s time and 5.7 billion gallons of fuel were wasted in 2001 because of congestion. The cost of these squandered resources is a staggering $69.5 billion.
But as bad as this is, there’s an immeasurably more costly and tragic measure of the system’s performance: the human toll. Every year, more than 43,000 people are killed and nearly 3 million are injured in crashes on our nation’s roads and highways. The economic cost of vehicle crashes annually is over $230 billion dollars.
Before those of you who live outside of cities think these numbers don’t apply, think again. According to the Federal Highway Administration, congestion is no longer limited to urban areas. Thanks to sprawl, as we pave over the countryside and build more box stores and McMansions, it’s spreading everywhere. More rural areas with less congestion also permit higher speeds – the per person crash costs in these communities could be even higher than in the small cities.
The total combined costs of crashes and congestion per vehicle mile traveled had an inverse relationship with the size of the city. The biggest cities averaged about $.25 per mile while the smallest were about $.41.
MetoRiderLA has taken AAA’s figures and compared the costs in Los Angeles and Orange County to the mass transit subsidies there. Residents there lose $1,561 annually per person to congestion and crashes, pay the highest gas taxes in the nation (63.9 cents per gallon), and pay additional taxes towards highway and road building and maintenance, environmental damage, health care costs due to pollution, etc. Add up all of those figures, challenges MetroRiderLA, and then claim that the nation’s woefully underfunded mass transit systems receive unfair subsidies.
Photos via flickr by size8jeans & by rahook2000
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Using it to start a jitney service for your neighbors is probably the best first step.
But if it’s time to shed the vehicle (and SUVs are probably not that great as homes), then the most usefull thing to do is to take the time to dismantle it piece by piece so instead of being crushed and scrapped, the SUV’s parts can be sorted by material and the higher grade steel and copper fetch a prettier penny.