Economics of road accidents and fatalities in Britain

Enormous costs stem from road accidents. Using a unique dataset and a variety of statistical models, this thesis investigates road accidents as consequences of other factors linked to risky driver behaviour. We find a procyclical relationship between economic activity and road accidents and fatalities but a changing relationship with severity (procyclical pre-GFC, but not thereafter). Overall accidents increase with positive and negative FTSE100 returns. However, fatal accidents decline with negative returns. Analysis of two driver penalty interventions relating to speeding and mobile phone use reveals no effect of either intervention on numbers of serious or fatal accidents.

Author requested conversion to open occess  7 Apr 2022