Analysis of the economic impact of medical and optometric driving standards on costs incurred by trucking firms and on the social costs of traffic accidents

Georges Dionne (), Claire Laberge-Nadeau, Denise Desjardins, Stéphane Messier and Urs Maag
Additional contact information
Claire Laberge-Nadeau: Université de Montréal
Denise Desjardins: Université de Montréal
Stéphane Messier: Université de Montréal
Urs Maag: Université de Montréal

No 98-6, Working Papers from HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management

Abstract: Recent studies do not agree on the possible relationships between medical conditions and traffic safety; most of them do not control for exposure factors. In this study, we estimate the effect of different medical conditions (namely diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary disease, and visual impairment) on the distribution of accidents of truck drivers. Our data and our model permit the simultaneous control for age, medical conditions and other characteristics of the truck drivers; exposure factors measured by hours, kilometers, and qualitative factors; and of the circumstances surrounding accidents described in police reports. The results show that truck drivers not in class 1 (79% are class 3) with diabetes have more accidents than the drivers in good health. No other medical condition studied has a significant effect on individual accident rates. Many risk exposure variables are significant. We have also estimated the parameters of the severity distribution. Our data limited the regression analysis of the severity in terms of the number of victims injured or killed. The results indicate that drivers with a visual impairment (binocular vision impairment) have more serious accidents than those in good health. Our cost estimations show that the expected average cost of drivers with diabetes is twice as high as the expected average cost of drivers in good health. The cost differences are less significant for the drivers with a visual impairment. The conclusion summarizes the main results.

Keywords: Medical condition; traffic safety; truck drivers; accidents; exposure factors; age; private accident costs; human capital costs; willingness to pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 G22 I12 I13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 1998-05-20
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.risksresearch.com/_files/ugd/a6eed3_d0 ... 9f716ee820e0fa85.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Analysis of the Economic Impact of Medical and Optometric Driving Standards on Costs Incured by Trucking Firms and on the Social Costs of Traffic Accidents (1998)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:crcrmw:1998_006

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Claire Boisvert ().