The elements of benefit-cost analysis were identified. A determination was made as to the extent of availability of information needed for application to highway traffic accident loss reduction measures. It was found that important information is currently not being sufficiently quantifiable, in addition to considerable uncertainty of the quantifiable information available. Most important are the lack of: an adequate measure of injury severity reduction; measures of non-economic losses; and any knowledge of the time preference for life saving and injury reduction. It was concluded that performing benefit-cost analyses can provide useful insights to aid decision making, but that to rely on benefit-cost ratios or similar summary results is likely to be misleading
Abstract