This article describes methods to place a cost value on accidents in Kuwait. Three attempts have been made. The first study, which evaluated accidents in 1979 used motor vehicle insurance data and studied the following three aspects of costs: human loss, medical, and property damage costs. The total costs were found to be $(US) 414 million. The second study, published in 1986 was more detailed and considered 5 components of cost: property damage, personal injury, lostearnings, medical costs and insurance costs. The study, conducted in 1982 compared property damage accident records kept by the GeneralTraffic Department (GTD) and those reported to insurance companies for claims and found that only one third of property damage accidents are reported and have records in the GTD. Cost was estimated as being $408 million. The third study, using 1984 data used accident records kept by the GTD as well as insurance data. The models were usedto estimate the human capital lost per death. These models producedvery different values ($194 and $986 thousand) because of the variations in assumptions and methods of assessment. An average value of $590000 per death was used for comparison with other studies and theestimated total cost was estimated at $459.5 million. All three methods were used to estimate the cost of traffic accidents that occurred in 1987, with the official data on property damage only accidentsbeing increased by 50% to allow for unreported accidents. The values obtained were $241.7 million, $230.5 million and $253.9 million respectively, which is about 1% of the gross domestic product. This isan improvement on earlier years, due mainly to a decrease in the number of deaths and injuries.
Samenvatting