NEWS Road accidents cost $340 billion a year

NHTSA found that these accidents directly cost taxpayers $30 billion and society as a whole $340 billion.

When quality-of-life estimates are included, the total cost to society amounts to $1.37 trillion—equivalent to 1.6 percent of U.S. economic output.

Distracted driving alone has a cost of $98b, while the cost of traffic congestion, including travel delays and increased fuel use, is estimated at $36 billion.

The last time NHTSA estimated the social cost of car crashes was in 2010, the total cost was $242 billion.

The number of traffic deaths in the United States is now skyrocketing.

They will jump 10.5% to 42,915 in 2021 alone, the deadliest year for deaths on U.S. roads since 2005.

Traffic deaths fell 0.2% in the first nine months of 2022, but the death rate was still higher than in any year since 2007 before the pandemic.

Deputy Transportation Minister Polly Trottenberg said the agency was committed to addressing the death toll.

“We wanted to figure out what was working,” Ms. Trottenberg said.

“We don’t want to get ourselves off the hook.”

The number of pedestrians killed in 2021 jumped 13% to 7,342, the most since 1981.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said earlier this year that the number of cyclists killed rose 5% to 985, the highest level since at least 1980.

In the first six months of 2022, U.S. pedestrian fatalities will rise another 2 percent, and cyclist fatalities will rise another 8 percent, NHTSA said.