08/30/2010 // West Palm Beach, FL, US // Sandra Quinlan // Sandra Quinlan
West Palm Beach, FL—A recent report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicated motor vehicle accidents cost the United States nearly $100 billion annually. The costs account for medical care expenses and productivity losses resultant of injuries sustained in such crashes, according to an August 25, 2010 CNN report.
The CDC study concluded every licensed driver in the U.S. pays an average of about $500 a year toward the total costs associated with motor vehicle crashes. Additionally, around $3.6 billion of the total costs go towards treating children injured in traffic accidents.
“Every 10 seconds, someone in the United States is treated in an emergency department for crash-related injuries, and nearly 40,000 people die from these injuries a year. This study highlights the magnitude of the problem of crash-related injuries from a cost perspective, and the numbers are staggering,” said Dr. Grant Baldwin, director of the CDC’s Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
Both fatal and non-fatal injury-related costs included the following:
• Occupants of cars and light trucks: $70 billion
• Motorcyclists: $12 billion
• Bicyclists: $5 billion
• Pedestrians: $10 billion
The report noted that motorcyclists’ and pedestrians’ injury-related costs were inconsistent with the actual number of injuries, possibly because of the severity of the victims’ injuries.
Motorcyclists, for instance, make up 6 percent of all crash-induced injuries and fatalities. However, motorcyclists’ account for 12 percent of all injury-related expenses.
While many states are making it a point to establish new safety programs and laws to cut down the number of accidents, as well as their subsequent costs, there will always be risks associated with navigating today’s busy roadways.
The CDC’s study consists of data collected in 2005 and was published in the journal “Traffic Injury Prevention.”
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