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PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 22:25 
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A post in the Yahoo Group brought up the issue misleading figures of fatal and serious unjury accident costs, which I looked into last year.

The popular figures quoted seem to be taken from "Highways Economics Note No.1: 1998" which, to summarise:

FATAL
Lost output: £399,540
Medical and ambulance: £4,730
Human costs: £794,870
Police cost: £1,220
Insurance admin: £190
Damage to property: £7,120
Total: £1,207,670

SERIOUS
Lost output: £16,430
Medical and ambulance: £9,840
Human costs: £111,700
Police cost: £170
Insurance admin: £120
Damage to property: £3,240
Total: £141,490

SLIGHT
Lost output: £1,930
Medical and ambulance: £820
Human costs: £9,170
Police cost: £40
Insurance admin: £70
Damage to property: £1,920
Total: £13,940

Human costs are based on a WTP (willingness to pay) calculation and are "pain, grief and suffering to the casualty, relatives and friends, and, for fatal casualties, the intrinsic loss of enjoyment of life over and above the consumption of goods and services.". Ie. this value cannot be attributed to anything like insurance payouts or direct costs to anybody in particular.

The lost output is obviously the revenue that would be put into the country had they been working - the figures seem to make some sort of sense.

I have read some different reports that claims a serious injury accident as "costing" the NHS between 70 and £100,000 and tallying this as "X hip replacements" and "Y baby monitors" etc. This doesn't tally with the above figures but are still used widely by Safety Camera Partnerships - I think they have got a bit confused somewhere. Assuming the £100k figure is correct and not included in the top figures, an OVERWHEMING amount must be salaries of staff, and assumes that you can redeploy the costs to other areas by mothballing services or laying off staff - ie. sack 10 ICU staff working with road accident victims and employ one surgeon to replace hips.

FINALLY (whew!) the costs listed up the top are, of course, used to maxmimum benefit by the SCP spin doctors. Here is a classic by Julian Hewitt, chief spin doctor at Hampshire clearly using some slighly inflated figures from above:

Image

Note the quote "a death on the roads cost TAXPAYERS..." - as if a cash figure of £1.5m comes from tax revenues. I think you will agree that this is a highly misleading statement, but sadly not uncommon amongst the professional PR people that apparently HAVE to be employed by partnerships.

Gareth


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 19:03 
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I think what Mr Hewitt means is the £1.5M is the cost to the country, not the taxpayer. i.e. affect on businesses, delays to travelling motorist, as well as the Police etc.

These figures are used in calculating the Cost benefit analysis of schemes. Accident reduction savings against cost of scheme. some schemes are justified on the forecast accident reductions and cost benefits.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 18:09 
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g atrill , u are right.

an examination of highways economic note one will show the human costs to be grief etc..

since when has grief etc cost anything ..

its garbage.

lost output is not relevent, providing there is one single person on the unemployment ladder waiting to climb on. there is an occasional exception.


Yes every council in the land quotes 1.2 million (plus indexing ) , times the number of deaths in the county , usually around 100, as being the cost of death on the roads in the county. ie 100,milllion. therefore to spend 5 million employing them to run speed cams is sound finance. That's why they work in the council, that's why the council tax is so much and all of their spending is out of control . So much for their way of thinking.

finally 100,000 as the average cost TO THE NHS of an accident is pure rubbish. I have lost the link, but to start with the insurance companys pay. They pay up to 30,000. there are 1500 acidents per annum which exceed 30,000. lets say on average an extra 3ok not covered by insurance.

The other accidents average pay out to the nhs is around 6-800 only, that is the agreed average cost of an accident, between the industry and the NHS . There is virtually no cost to the nhs, and if there is some small amount, all be it 1500 x 3o k = 45m, its chicken feed in their multi billion pound budget, which we pay for ie to fix us should we hurt our selves driving or falling off a ladder, for which the insurance company pays no contribution. .

rgds
bill


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 11:36 
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As Bill says - NHS recoups much of the cost of treatments from insurance companies. The trusts are entitled to do so - and do so all the more than in previous years due to very tight budgets. Of course, trusts can be "out of pocket" most of the time due to timing delays!

Human cost? Grief affects people differently and in some cases - it has cost money in terms of sickness (bereavement etc.) Some have even lost impetus to hold job down in odd cases!

So costs to industry - hold ups due to incident, recruitment costs, training costs of new staff, general loss of output due loss of "key" member to a team...

Know only too well impact of grief. Wife's family lost cousin in freak accident when artic. lorry crashed through central reservation and struck the relative's car! He was killed outright, but the grief and loss is still felt 14 years on! (They also lost another in plane crash around same time). My wife was almost killed in a freak accident just 5 months later! (Man had stroke/coronary behind wheel of his car. She was stationary as last car in jam at time). Can confirm that sense of grief, loss and general worry at time in case of my wife is beyond measure and certainly, to us personally, beyond cost. These incidents were accidents. The first may have been prevented if lorry's owner and driver had maintained vehicle properly. The others - unavoidable. No scamera nor trafpol could have prevented these either! (Though trafpols did provide some First Aid to my wife - they kept her awake and conscious by reassuring "chatter" and keeping her warm until proper help arrived!)

Can confirm from actual personal experience of insurance dealings that very significant part of hospital costs are recouped from insurance companies!

There is a lot of dangerous spin from the Scamships. They play and spin the statistics. They will employ accountants and statisticians to provide the figures they want! It is part and parcel of the political farce which so wants to be seen as "doing something" but like everything else which is politically correct New (Stasi) Labour - it simply fails to achieve!


We could do with independent non-biased assessment of both pro and anti scam figures. The true picture is probably somewhere in the middle, but skewed more towards the anti-scam figures! (which of course I would say :wink: )


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 19:34 
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Dear Mad moggie,


I saw your post, and I have to ask you a straight question.

I am sure, I couldn't give u enough money to compensate for a loss of life of a dear one . Generally speaking it simply isn't possible.

Grief value is £ 800,000 is as u know from Highways economic note one. I am sorry to say , there is absolutley no economical value for grief .

Scam cams with out a two grey cells to rub together, just look at the summary, ""a death costs 1.2 million "" The council "numpkins" then go out and say , :idea: if we plant trees along all the lanes of the M1 , we will save 100 lives, ie 120 million, and the cost is only 60 million. We made a "profit" of 60 million , :idea: let's go and spend it on an even bigger office with better carpet to celebrate our abilities at capitalists. Why do all these business men complain it's hard to make money, we find it so easy !!!

lost output, I am sorry I am not an economist, but I stand by my claim , its invalid while there is someone to climb on the bottom rung of the working ladder. ok minor retraining costs, which actually improve the economy.

As for the NHS costs , For the scam cam head office ( I can't remeber the silly woman's name ) to then use the moral rightous argument of saving the nhs money, is just plain B*k*s , The :evil: woman should be fired for bringing the whole game into disrepute with such blatent abuse of facts. :shock:

There is virtually no economic loss from a death, a little more from a serious injury, and almost nothing from a minor injury. (in the great scale of things) It's a weak pathetic argument, long may they continue to use it, for the longer we can tear it down every time. :twisted: .

rgds
bill


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 22:17 
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Hi Bill

Dunno about "human fodder" to replace the "unfortunates"! As the boss of my specialist team - I would be hard to replace! :lol: (Yeah right! - I would say that :wink: ) I would also find the specialist knowledge of my colleagues difficult to replace as well! Well - there is always a shortage of "clever clogs"! :wink:

My wife (WildCat) would be irreplaceable (but that is in emotional human terms to me!) She also holds senior post - and her knowledge and intelligence is very "valuable" to her bosses and the medical R&D industry! She would be classed as a loss in professional terms if she were to be unlucky a second time! And of course, we always wonder how life would have turned out for the two young relatives who died in those tragic incidents.


That is one of the problems when we attempt to place value on human life! We are all "irreplaceable" in emotional terms, but can be replaced jobwise (albeit with some difficulty regarding absolute and immediate specialist knowledge) . We can all name individuals who should have been "drowned at birth" (eg Saddam, Hitler, Mugabe, Honecker,), and others - talented individuals who still had much to offer to society as whole - who passed away naturally, accidentally or otherwise. (My wife's cousins would be one personal example. Buddy Holly would be a recognised by all readers example - (cannot really think of any talented politico :roll: !)

But this is subjective and emotional

Those incidents within this family were freak incidents. "Aunty Mary" did suffer similar! Her grief would be identical to ours! She, like us, has had to make sense of the loss and try to come to terms with it! But that is where we differ: We have! We accept the incidents as freak incidents and do not hold every driver responsible.

And I would say that this is the very heart strings our pals in the ScamShips are tugging! Because they know that we are influenced by emotions and subjectivity. That is why one of their fave poll questions on scam support is always:

"Would you like to see more road safety initiatives near your home?"

(This means scams on main roads - not speed awareness courses for cyclists :roll: )

Of course the average pretzel will allow him/herself to be duped! (That is how we get duped to vote for wrong MP as well! :roll: :wink: )

Of course the scams are now big business for them. The accountants in the family (Yup - epitome of Middle England - this family of puss cats - we've all got Middle England jobs, cars, homes and kittens!) reckon that they hide a truck load of cash in that black hole otherwise known as "provision for depreciation" (well buildings and F&F depreciate in value - as do PC Gatso & co :wink: :wink: :wink: - especially considering the antics of the Good Captain :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink: )

As for the scammers saving the NHS money ..... NHS does not see any income from the fines - as far as I am aware. That all goes back to funding the comfy chair for the scammers backsides! And like I said earlier - NHS is entitled to claim back RTA treatment costs from the insurance companies - which they do!


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 00:23 
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http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/viewa ... p?id=85940

HORRIFIC COST OF EVERY FATAL ROAD CRASH
Published on 30/03/2004

By Mary Ingham

AS A MAJOR road safety campaign was launched in Cumbria yesterday it emerged that each fatal accident costs £1.5 million.

But this shocking figure, an insurance estimate, does not begin to take account of the human cost of the deaths and serious injuries on Cumbria’s roads.

Called “It Wouldn’t Kill You”, the campaign is being run by Safer Roads for Cumbria, a partnership between local authorities and business groups.

Cumbria has an alarming number of fatal and serious road accidents, those attending yesterday’s launch at Rheged, near Penrith were told.

There were 1,591 crashes in the county last year. Fifty four people died, 393 suffered serious injuries, and 2,245 were slightly hurt. There were 191 accidents involving motorcycles and eight fatalities.

The county council’s cabinet spokesman on roads, Kevan Wilkinson said Cumbria had one of the worst accident records in the UK.

The campaign would target all road users and highlight factors linked to crashes such as inappropriate speed, drink and drugs, use of mobile phones, road conditions, and in-car distraction.

Motorcyclists would be targeted first then van and wagon drivers, said Mr Wilkinson. A new Cumbria road safety award will be introduced later this year and the Chamber of Commerce would continue to encourage businesses to sign up to Driving Logic’s safe driver scheme.

“Our campaign will help all road users change their attitudes towards safety,” said Mr Wilkinson.

Cumbria Constabulary’s Chief Superintendent John Taylor said the county had some of the most picturesque but most lethal roads.

“Road collisions cost us all dearly,” said Mr Taylor. “In purely financial terms each fatal accident costs £1.5 million. Then there is the drain on the resources of the emergency services and hospitals and above all the human cost.”

Mr Taylor said most accidents were caused by poor driving and were therefore avoidable.

Cumbria Safety Camera spokesman Kevin Tea said in most parts of the UK, the motorways were the safest roads but in the county last year, 13 people died and 21 were badly hurt in M6 crashes.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 00:23 
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...and from the "Opinion" page:

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/opinion/vi ... p?id=85937

WE MUST CUT ROAD DEATH TOLL
Published on 30/03/2004

IT seems an extraordinary statistic for an apparently quiet, rural area but north Cumbria has the second worst fatal accident record in England.

Last year 54 people lost their lives on Cumbria’s roads. Each fatal accident involves incalculable human cost and new figures show there is also a direct and substantial financial price to pay – £1.5 million for each accident in which a person is killed. The exact reasons for Cumbria’s high fatal accident rate are still a mystery.

Some think our long open roads and the comparative lack of congestion are contributing factors – allowing drivers to put their foot down so that when accidents do happen the results are likely to be serious. But one fact is unavoidable: Very few accidents result from mechanical faults with vehicles. The overwhelming majority result from poor driving, bad judgements or mistakes made by one or more parties involved.

It is all to easy to take driving for granted but it is time we thought long and hard about this unpalatable reality – we are ourselves responsible for our own safety and that of others on the road. We wish Cumbria’s new road safety campaign every success.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:30 
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stuffed a letter in on the off chance.



Congratulations Cumbria now have a safety camera partnership and join the rest of the united kingdom with a future full of layer upon layer of misleading facts.

The scam cam partnerships, to a man, all use highways economic note one which was published in 1999 to claim each and every death costs 1.2 million pounds( since inflated to 1.5 million ). They use this huge nu

u guys have reaad this before, so I wont go on !!!!

rgds


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