A cross is displayed: roadside to mourn the loss of someone in a vehicle accident. Increased gas prices have an effect on the amount of driving people do, decreasing the chance for accidents. Lindsey Davidson / PHOTO EDITOR
Throughout the summer months, drivers continue to feel the effects of rising gas prices, but that steep $4 per gallon could be saving lives, according to a recent study conducted by economists at Harvard Medical School and University of Alabama at Birmingham.
High gas prices are forcing many drivers to cut back on highway driving time, and the study projects the decline could cut annual auto deaths by one-third, nationwide.
Professors Michael Morrisey of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and David Grabowski of Harvard Medical School became interested in motor vehicle policies in early 2000.
UAB colleagues at the time were conducting vision tests on the elderly, in hopes to connect vision acuity with the ability to operate a motor vehicle safely. Many policies came online between 1980 and 2000 from studies like this, to potentially address the high rate of traffic fatalities.
“Across the board, we saw an increase in the stringency of policy, but not a subsequent decline in fatalities,” Grabowski said.
This led the economists to consider what policies were actually influencing overall driving, because roadway fatalities were not decreasing.
Gas prices have a tremendous effect on whether we decide to drive. Whether we choose to drive influences our ability to be involved in an accident. The collected research showed that every 10 percent increase in gasoline prices sustained over time led to an approximate 2 percent decrease in fatalities, Grabowski explained.
Morrisey and Grabowski presented the most recent study’s findings, which focused on younger drivers, to the American Society of Health Economists earlier this month in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Those falling in the 16-25 age range with a less disposable income are driving less as a result of higher gas prices.
The fatality rate among teenage drivers turned out to be dramatically lower, a 6 percent decline.
To compile the data needed for the study, the research team used the F.A.R.S online database.
The fatality analysis reporting system contains data on fatal traffic crashes in all 50 states.
It helped the team gain an overall measure of highway safety and evaluate the effectiveness of motor vehicle safety standards and highway safety programs, Morrisey explained.
“We are very confident in our results, but it’s hard to know what’s going to happen in the long run with gas prices,” Grabowski said.
Local law enforcement and Alabama state troopers have been working hard to reduce highway fatalities, as well.
“Looking back starting in 2006, many factors contribute to roadway fatalities,” said Dorris Teague, spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Public Safety. “It was a growing concern in Alabama that needed to be addressed in a very intentional way. Alabama’s “Take Back Our Highways” initiative and rising gas prices certainly have had a tremendous effect on the declining number of traffic deaths in the state.”
Recent Department of Transportation data showed Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April, marking the sixth consecutive month driving was down.
“This new study is all kinds of exciting for us. None of us like higher gas prices, but maybe there is a bit of an upside to it all,” Morrisey said.
