For long term trend of the number of crashes in a country, the weather conditions (long hard winter, warm spring and/or autumn) definitely are relevant.
Besides this, I have read about the relevance of the state of the economy as a further determinant of a rise or decrease of crashes several times. But the evidence always was from the US. I am curious if there is European evidence available, also.
I anybody aware of research from Europe, dealing with the influence of the weather and economic indicators on road crashes?
I am not aware of a complete study covering all Europe. You can find studies on single regions though. https://uhdspace.uhasselt.be/dspace/bitstream/1942/1365/1/impact%20of%20weather.pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1017/S1350482799001139/abstract
@N. Tartaglione: Thanks for these interesting links regarding the influence of the weather on road crashes.
Anybody with information on the influence of the state of the economy?
there is an interesting report by KPMG. But this is related to climate change and specific sectors compared all over the world. But it indicates the importance of climate for business in some way at least on the organisational level.
http://www.kpmg.com/EU/en/Documents/Climate_Changes_Your_Business.pdf
also check the publications from "Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology" (http://www.cedim.de/) and the Proceedings from the ISCRAM conferences (http://www.iscramlive.org/portal/). They might be interesting.
SWOV has written a factsheet on influence of weather on traffic
https://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheets/NL/Factsheet_Invloed_van_het_weer.pdf
Regrettably only available in Dutch, but it contains several references.
We were never able to clearly show a relation between road safety and economic parameters, except through changes in over all distance travelled. Weather conditions are clearly an important risk factor. Rain approximately doubles the risk (i.e. fatalities etc. per distance travelled). What is the reason to search for this combination? Surely weather and economy are uncorrelated. Weather changes by the hour, economic parameters by the year.
@Charles: Thanks, I will try to "get the meaning" anyway.
@Henk: Thanks also.
I am quite aware of the influence of the weather. But I am amazed, that only in the US the economic development is discussed as a determinant of road crashes. Maybe cultural differences in labour supply, labour market regulations ("hire and fire"), moving behaviour etc. become relevant here. Or maybe the economic development shows more "extreme" ups and downs. I can just speculate about aspects of the economic framework that determine mobility behaviour.
Hello Walter,
perhaps our studies may be useful on economic variables.....
Castillo-Manzano, J. I., Castro-Nuño, M., & Fageda, X. (2014). Could being in the European Union save lives? An econometric analysis of the Common Road Safety Policy for the EU-27. Journal of European Public Policy, 21(2), 211-229.
Castillo-Manzano, J. I., Castro-Nuño, M., & Pedregal, D. J. (2014). The trend towards convergence in road accident fatality rates in Europe: The contributions of non-economic variables. Transport Policy, 35, 229-240.
Hello Daniel
In Switzerland a research project on that issue was done in 1996 bei Wilde and
Simonet (Economic fluctuations and the traffic accident rates...)
Uwe
Thanks Uwe. That's interesting, the paper is even listed in Researchgate but the external link to bfu for downloading the file is broke. Do you know where to find it?
Googleing the keywords "economic fluctuation" and "traffic safety" points the user to more research, like "Traffic safety and economic fluctuation" from Sweden.
This week, I saw a presentation from Wouter Van den Berghe, Research Director from the Begium Road Safety Institute. He noted BRSI developed a model for effects of weather in Belgium and in Germany. Please enquire via their website. THe website for BRSI (http://www.brsi.be/) has the title but the link is broken. Perhaps enquire with Wouter.
A report worth reading in this context - "Why Does Road Safety Improve When Economic Times Are Hard?" - http://www.itf-oecd.org/why-does-road-safety-improve-when-economic-times-are-hard
Both weather and economic indicators influence road safety, but the exact way is quite complex. I don't think there is a single publication covering the entire problem. For example, in the Netherlands warm summers mean a lot of cycling (which is unsafe). But the effects can to a large extent be captured when distance travelled (by travel mode) is known. Low speed in cold and icy winters may explain better road safety. When speeds are well monitored, this effect, if it occurs, might be explained without incorporating the relation to weather.
The same complexity holds for economic parameters. During a recession travel may decrease due to unemployment; but of course it matters a lot if unemployed people either choose to stay at home, or decide to buy a moped instead of a car. This behaviour may be dependent on country, duration of the recession, driver age etc. etc. etc.
And yes, of course this is a gross simplification...
My advise is to be careful with generalizations of research results from one country to another.
BRSI link to weather and road safety research appears to have been fixed:
http://www.brsi.be/publications/Zijn%20er%20meer%20verkeersongevallen%20als%20het%20regent/Are%20there%20more%20accidents%20in%20the%20rain.pdf
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