Cost of highway work zone injuries

Highway work zones have two types of accidents: (i) the one that involves construction workers and accounts for 30% of the accidents, and (ii) the other that involves motorists outside the construction area, and account for 70% of the accidents. The construction/maintenance workers suffer approximately 29,000 first-aid injuries and 25,000 lost-time injuries with a total cost of $3.51 billion per year; and the motorists suffer approximately 700 fatalities, 36,000 injuries and 52,000 property-damage-only accidents, with a total cost of $5.74 billion per year. The total cost of highway work zone injuries thus calculates to $9.25 billion per year. The highway work zone fatalities per billion dollar spent, are at lest 4 times more than in total construction. This paper presents brief details of the various injury types, and their cost estimates. While the highway traffic fatality rate has been declining @ 3.3 per year since 1960, and the construction fatalities have been declining @ 6% per year since 1970, the work zone fatalities have stayed constant around 700 deaths per year. Using available databases, it was found that (i) the average direct cost of a motorist's injuries estimates to $3,687, (ii) an overturned vehicle has the largest average cost of $12,627 followed by a rear-end collision averaging $5,541. The analysis of causes of the traffic accidents showed that the driver error was the most expensive pre-crash activity with an average cost of 7,676.