Estimation of the Cost of Damage to Vehicles in Rural Road Accidents in Iran

People are usually involved with the phenomenon of road accidents, directly or indirectly. Estimations of the international organizations show that 75% of road accidents occur in developing countries, in spite of the fact that such countries only possess 32% of motorized vehicles. The cost of road accidents is a large proportion of transportation costs sustained by different societies. The cost of road accidents is composed of different elements, in which the cost of damaged vehicles constitutes an important part. In this research-work for the first time all existed information related to the type and pertinent characteristics of rural road accidents in Iran, were compiled and it was concluded that they are not sufficient for the calculation of the cost of damage to vehicles in such accidents. Therefore, additional information was needed. These were supplied by the analysis of raw data obtained from the police and insurance departments. The main three sources for the information used in this study, were: 1- Traffic and Transportation Department of the Law Enforcement Force, 2- Insurance and Assessment Companies, and 3- State Transportation and Terminal's Organization. Based on the said analysis, the rate of presence of different vehicles in accidents and also the severity of damage to vehicles were assessed. Then, through field studies and establishing the price of vehicles in both traditional and official markets, the cost of damage to vehicles in rural road accidents in Iran, defined in current Rials of the Iranian year 1383 (21 March 2004 to 20 March 2005), was estimated. Estimation phases include: 1-determining the average number of vehicles damaged in accidents, 2- determining the price of each vehicle involved in the accidents, 3- determining the damage inflicted to vehicles involved in accidents, and 4- analyzing the results of the former phases and determining the costs of damage to vehicles in rural accidents. Given the fact that the frequency of vehicles in the country's transportation fleet is not necessarily equal to their frequency of involvement in road accidents, extensive research was concluded in this study to determine the percent of involvement of each vehicle in the accidents. In order to obtain such information 1082 accident files from police and 2101 accident files from insurance were analyzed. The results show that the average number of vehicles in each rural accident was 1.89. The rate of average damage inflicted to vehicles in rural road accidents in Iran in this study, in comparison to their price, is calculated to be equal 18.7%. This is the most delicate and detailed calculation of such cost ever estimated in Iran. This cost which is 6196.7 billion Rials (US$ 673.5 million), corresponds to more than 0.5 per cent of the country's Gross National Product. Also it is seen that this cost is greater than total budget designated to the road construction and maintenance of the country's road network in year 1383 which was equivalent to 5121 billion Rials.