Value of life
They say the road project is worth it. They're probably wrong.
How much are you worth? A family member, an employer, and an insurance agent will each have very different answers.
Urbanists often talk about the importance of creating livable, walkable communities that reduce our dependence on cars. The more time people spend in traffic, the more likely they are to be involved in a crash.
Every day, around 100 Americans are killed in car traffic. That's 100 families who receive the devastating news that their loved one will never return home. As tragic as these deaths are on a personal level, there's also a significant economic cost to consider. It sounds crass to put a dollar value on human life, but it might be an effective way to stop a dangerous transportation project before it gets past the drawing board.
The cost of you not working
According to the National Safety Council, the total cost of motor vehicle deaths, injuries, and property damage in 2019 was $474.4 billion. The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety found that motor vehicle crash injuries on- and off-the-job cost employers $72.2 billion in 2018 (their most recent study year).
On-the-job crashes cost employers $26,081 per crash. It costs them $66,119 per million vehicle-miles of travel and $78,418 per injury.
Including insurance expenses, employer health care (medical) spending for motor vehicle crashes totaled $19 billion in 2018. Another $17 billion was spent on sick leave and life and disability insurance for crash victims. Protecting employees from motor vehicle crash injuries can be a valuable investment of time and resources.
The cost of you not living
The USDOT says the value of a statistical is roughly $10 million, although they suggest using a range that includes high and low values. That means that every traffic fatality prevented through a traffic calming project is worth $10 million in economic benefits. It’s an order-of-magnitude starting point, so don’t get hung up on precision. Take a look at this summary from USDOT’s chief economist if you’re curious about their methodology.
Count the costs
You can put these numbers to work in your advocacy. Let’s say your county is advertising a big road project to reduce congestion and improve safety. They’re using phrases like “corridor improvement” and “signal upgrades” in their marketing material.
But you, regular reader of Urbanism Speakeasy, can’t shake the curiosity of a roundabout instead of a massive intersection with dual left-turn lanes, more through lanes, and all the other standard fixings. You seem to recall a third of traffic crash deaths happen at signalized intersections.
Do some number crunching for national and project-specific applications.
FHWA reports that converting a signalized intersection to a roundabout can reduce fatal and injury crashes by 78%.
The average number of fatalities and injuries at signalized intersections each year is around 7,500. That's potentially over 5,800 lives saved or serious injuries prevented annually.
Your corridor has a cluster of signalized intersections that account for 10 fatalities and 30 injuries in the last 10 years. Converting those signals to roundabouts could have saved 8 lives and 23 injuries. That’s $80,000,000 lost to fatalities and $1,803,614 lost to injuries.
Ask the project manager if those costs are part of the planning analysis. If not, why not? If yes, then why is this project moving forward?
You’re probably told the cost of building a roundabout is too high, something like $1 million for each intersection. Maybe it’s even [gasp!] $3 million. But if “expensive intersections” prevent just one fatal crash, the DOT has already more than made up for the cost in economic benefits (not to mention the immeasurable pain and suffering to families of victims).
The applications of these math exercises are endless, of course. This isn’t just about roundabouts. I rarely saw the costs of deaths and injuries incorporated in benefit/cost ratios of standard corridor studies and traffic impact studies. You’ll be coming at experts with what seems like their expertise, and they’ll probably be dumbfounded.
Make memes, make infographics, make videos. Focus some on an employer’s point of view and some on a local government point of view. Share them with any politician who wants to be a hero (i.e. every politician).
Reduce the costs
The best way to reduce crash-related costs is to prevent crashes. Prevention strategies are abundant, but the willpower of decision-makers is rare. Here’s some related reading material.
I don't doubt your statistics on signalized intersections, but I doubt the cost of a roundabout is as low as a mere $3 million I urban areas where not just land but dozens of businesses built on that land will have to be bought out, and hundreds if not thousands of employees lose their jobs.
And, as someone who has worked on multiple road projects building roundabouts, they apparently confuse drivers as first. And no amount of signage seems to help, because there is a percentage of drivers who will drive a round a sign and claim that they never saw it. I see that everyday at work. As someone whose job is literally traffic safety (I am a traffic control supervisor), it's frustrating. But every time a new roundabout goes up, there are multiple collisions from people who are so used to making a left turn that they can't imagine not making a left turn, and do so, going the wrong way down the roundabout, diving into oncoming traffic that is rarely looking around the curve. We need better solutions that traffic signals, and it may be that roundabouts are the least bad option, but I do wish we would stop treating them as a great option