This study has refined the methodology and expanded the scope of a previous Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics study on the cost of road accidents in Australia. The human capital approach has been used in this study to estimate the social cost of road, rail, aviation and maritime accidents in Australia in 1988. Several accident cost categories have been separately estimated and combined to yield the total cost for each transport mode. These cost categories include lost earnings, foregone family and community contributions, pain and suffering, property damage, insurance administration, losses to non-victims, travel delay, hospital and rehabilitation, medical, accident investigation, legal and court, ambulance, and search and rescue. Australian working life tables and other statistical data were used to estimate the market and non-market output lost due disability and premature death of accident victims. Transport accidents in 1988 were conservatively estimated to have cost Australian society $6.6 billion. Road accidents contributed $6.1 billion (94 per cent) to this total. Aviation accidents cost $64 million (1 per cent), rail $94 million (1.4 per cent) and maritime $264 million (4 per cent). Property damage, which cost $2 billion, was the largest singlecomponent of the cost of transport accidents, representing over 30 per cent of the total cost. Other cost components which amounted to $1 billion or more were pain and suffering ($1.4 billion or 22 per cent) and lost earnings ($1 billion or 15 per cent).
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