TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2005//
TI  - Traffic fatalities and economic growth
JO  - Accident analysis and prevention
A1  - Cropper, Maureen L.
A1  - Kopits, Elizabeth
SP  - 169
EP  - 178
VL  - 37
IS  - 1
N2  - This paper examines the relationship between traffic fatality risk and per capita income and uses it to forecast traffic fatalities by geographic region. Equations for the road death rate (fatalities/population) and its components-the rate of motorization (vehicles/population) and fatalities per vehicle (F/V)-are estimated using panel data from 1963 to 1999 for 88 countries. The natural logarithm of F/P, V/P, and F/V are expressed as spline (piecewise linear) functions of the logarithm of real per capita GDP (measured in 1985 international prices). Region-specific time trends during the period 1963-1999 are modeled in linear and log-linear form. These models are used to project traffic fatalities and the stock of motor vehicles to 2020. The per capita income at which traffic fatality risk (fatalities/population) begins to decline is $8600 (1985 international dollars) when separate time trends are used for each geographic region. This turning point is driven by the rate of decline in fatalities/vehicles as income rises since vehicles/population, while increasing with income at a decreasing rate, never declines with economic growth. Projections of future traffic fatalities suggest that the global road death toll will grow by approximately 66% over the next twenty years. This number, however, reflects divergent rates of change in different parts of the world: a decline in fatalities in high-income countries of approximately 28% versus an increase in fatalities of almost 92% in China and 147% in India. The road death rate is projected to rise to approximately 2 per 10,000 persons in developing countries by 2020, while it will fall to less than 1 per 10,000 in high-income countries.
LA  - en
SN  - 0001-4575
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2004.04.006
ID  - ref1
ER  -