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> Using figures from 2019, the study looked at the direct cost of car crashes—everything from the price of emergency response, medical expenses, court fees, con
by avidiax 3y ago
> Using figures from 2019, the study looked at the direct cost of car crashes—everything from the price of emergency response, medical expenses, court fees, congestion, the cost of property damage, you name it. NHTSA found that the total hit to the economy in just that one year was $340 billion.
> The NHTSA study also looked at broader quality of life costs—things like what happens when a family’s primary breadwinner is killed, or when someone has to adjust to a life-altering injury. Adding those impacts brought the total cost of societal harm from motor vehicle crashes to $1.4 trillion.
There are 228 million drivers in the US. Assuming no cost to administer the insurance, just the first figure is:
340 billion / 228.2 million = $1,490/year/driver
and the 2nd figure is 1.4 trillion / 228.2 million = $6,135/year/driver
Essentially, drivers would need to, on average, pay $511/month to completely cover the damages caused in auto crashes. And that's per driver, so a household with 2 drivers would chip in $1022/mo.
- kelipso 3y agoAccounting for negative externalities but not positive externalities...
- fulafel 3y agoAccounting for one kind of externality, but this is missing the climate catastrophe, and other costs of car culture. What are the major positive externalities? (Value enjoyed by the car user isn't an externality)
- avidiax 3y agoI suppose that without cars, there would be less economic productivity outside cities. You would not have mass transit in the countryside, so you'd be limited to horse and carriage, rickshaws, etc.
- kelipso 3y agoAnd since cars increase economic productivity, car insurance should be subsidized.
- avidiax 3y agoThe status quo is not that the insurance is subsidized, however. The negative externalities are being born by individual victims. A subsidy would be that the government pays for all those unfunded individual externalities out of taxpayer money, which means that every driver has effectively infinite coverage but pays only the state minimums.
- dzhiurgis 3y agoState insurance tax would be nice, but only cover to median car amount. Everything over it - insure yourself if you wish to.
- fulafel 3y agoIs this an externality? It benefits people who own cars. (It's far from clear of course that public transit would be missing, there used to be public transit in small towns before everybody got cars in many places. Horses are also unlikely to replace bikes.)
- antisthenes 3y agoCar ownership for productive economic activity is not an externality, because it is direct, expected, and is captured in GDP and household income figures.
- parineum 3y agoThose other services are paid for by taxes. The tempting response to this will be thT those taxes could be lower, saving non-drivers money. However, the taxes may not be paid by drivers but all people benefit from drivers existing such that the economic impact of forcing only drivers to pay for these things will end up being priced into all goods and services. Essentially, government services paid for by taxes function very similarly to an insurance pool.