Pricing For Traffic Safety

Despite billions of dollars invested to create safer roads and vehicles, and to encourage safer driving behavior, traffic risk continues to be a major cause of deaths and injuries, and the U. S. has one of the highest per capita traffic fatality rates among developed countries. [...] Small and Van Dender (2007) and Hymel, Small and Van Dender (2010) found that vehicle travel price elasticities declined to less than -0.1 (a 10% fuel price increase reduced vehicle travel less than 0.1%) in the U. S. between 1970 and 2004, but this was a unique period of increasing travel demand, rising incomes, automobile-oriented planning, and declining real (inflation-adjusted) fuel prices. [...] Safety Impacts Public transport tends to have low traffic crash and casualty rates per passenger-mile and overall traffic fatality rates tend to decline in an urban area as public transit ridership increases, as indicated in figures 10 and 11. [...] Table 1 Transport Pricing Reform Impacts Pricing Type Description Travel Impacts Traffic Safety Impacts Higher fuel Increase fuel prices to finance European-level fuel prices Reducing vehicle travel provide prices roads and traffic services, and reduce per-capita vehicle travel about proportionate or greater to internalize fuel economic 30-50% compared with North crash reductions (i.e., a 30% and [...] However, even countries with relatively low per capita traffic fatality rates, such as Northern Europe, Japan and Korea could implement more efficient road and parking pricing, and distance-based insurance and registration fees, which would further increase traffic safety, and help achieve other planning objectives.