The causal effect of wrong-hand drive vehicles on road safety

Felix Roesel

No 15/17, CEPIE Working Papers from Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE)

Abstract: Left-hand drive (LHD) vehicles share higher road accident risks under left-hand traffic because of blind spot areas. Due to low import prices, the number of wrong-hand drive vehicles skyrockets in emerging countries like Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. I identify the causal effect of wrong-hand drive vehicles on road safety employing a new \backward version" of the synthetic control method. Sweden switched from left-hand to right-hand traffcin 1967. Before 1967, however, almost all Swedish vehicles were LHD for reasons of international trade and Swedish customer demand. I match on accident figures in the period after 1967, when both Sweden and other European countries drove on the right and used LHD vehicles. Results show that right-hand traffic decreased road fatality, injury and accident risk in Sweden by a proximately 30 percent. An earlier switch would have saved more than 4,000 lives between 1953 and 1966.

Keywords: road accidents; Sweden; natural experiment; synthetic control method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C53 K32 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cis, nep-hea and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: The causal effect of wrong-hand drive vehicles on road safety (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:tudcep:1517

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