Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

IV
SOCIAL COST OF MOTOR VEHICLE COLLISIONS IN
ONTARIO
A. INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the social cost of motor vehicle collisions in Ontario for
2004 based on the costs and allocation methods discussed in the previous chapter.
B. SOCIAL COSTS
Exhibit IV-1 presents our estimate of the social costs of motor vehicles collisions
using the willingness to pay (WTP) method for valuing human consequences and the
medium scenario for this value. The social costs are presented in millions of dollars in the
base year 2004.
Social costs estimated based on collision identified in ORSAR for 2004 (See
Exhibit III-1), adjustments to reflect under-reporting and misreporting in the data (See
Section III B and Exhibit III-3), estimates of other characteristics of injured persons (See
Section III C), estimates of resource use as a result of collision (See Section III D), and
values for human consequences (See Section III E) and non-human consequences (See
Section III F).
Using the medium WTP estimates and the analysis and parameters previously
described, the social cost of motor vehicle collisions for 2004 is $17.9 billion. Total
social cost by collision severity is: Fatal—$11.5 billion; Injury—$5.0 billion; and PDO—
$1.3 billion. The average social cost by collision severity is: Fatal—$15.7 million;
Injury—$82 thousand; and PDO—$8 thousand. The average collision had a social cost of
$77 thousand in 2004.
Human consequence of the collision represents the largest component of costs at
$15 billion (84%) with fatalities comprising $11 billion of this sub-total (62% of all social
costs).
Other consequences are significant at $2.9 billion (16%). Major contributors to
social costs among non-human consequences are property damage and other losses
normally paid through insurance at $1.8 million (6%), traffic delay costs at $502 million
(2.8%), out-of-pocket expenses which will include property damages that are not
reimbursed through insurance at $206 million (1.2%), hospital/health care costs at $123
million (0.7%), tow truck services at $96 million (0.5%), fire department response at $91
million (0.5%), and police services at $85 million (0.5%).
TNS Canadian Facts, Social and Policy Research 47