Costs of traffic accidents involving motorcyclists in Jataí - GO
In the analyzed period, there were 929 accidents in 2013, 1,051 in 2014 and 322 in 2015 in the municipality of Jataí. Of this total, there were 888 accidents in the urban perimeter in 2013, 1,011 in 2014 and 316 in 2015. The decrease in the number of accidents recorded from 2014 to 2015 is due to the change in the procedure adopted by the Military Police, which began from 2015 to dispatch a crew only to occurrences with victims or in which the parties involved did not reach a consensus. For accidents without victims, drivers must enter an online platform to report the event. However, in some cases those involved do not perform this procedure of online reporting, because they reach a consensus at the time of the event, thus favoring the underreporting of accident cases.
To identify the involvement of motorcyclists in accidents, a field was created in the database to inform whether there was a motorcycle or not, so we applied this filter to delimit our data. The creation of this field was necessary because, in field 19 of the TAR, one should inform the identification and the amount of the vehicles involved, but some statements reported that a motorcyclist was involved in the accident, and it was not described in this field. Thus, we used this filter in order to minimize the concealment of occurrences with motorcyclists.
With this, we identified 1,118 occurrences that fit the profile of the study, that is, the presence of the involvement of motorcyclists and accidents that occurred within the urban perimeter of Jataí. Of a total, 419 occurred in 2013, 486 in 2014 and 213 in 2015.
Cabral, Souza and Lima (2011) identified that this group takes even more risks in the driving of vehicles, such as high speed, inadequate maneuvers and alcohol use. From the standpoint of the activity, there are also other costs associated, such as potential social security expenses that greatly increase costs to the public coffers, with the consequence of work inactivity and the need for rehabilitation.
Regarding deaths, according to data obtained from the Informatics Department of the Unified Health System - DATASUS, Jataí had 35 deaths in 2013, 36 deaths in 2014 and 39 deaths in 2015 for category V01 - V99 of CID-10, which refers to the category of traffic accidents. The total number of deaths represents 9.43% of the number of accidents with victims for the year 2013, 8.26% for the year 2014 and 16.32% for the year 2015. This fact should be taken into account when structuring actions aimed at reducing accidents, instead of only verifying the number of accidents recorded.
For traffic accidents to be considered the underlying cause of death, this has to occur within 30 days after the event. In this case, for people who have been injured in a period longer than this, even if they are hospitalized or have other subsequent medical conditions due to the accident, leading to death, these numbers do not enter the statistics.
Deaths have consequences at various levels, depending on the position of those who are analyzing or experiencing this result. For a family that loses its loved one, death means pain, longing and absence. If the death occurred with the provider member, this family may become in need and the basics, such as food and hygiene, may be lacking. For the municipality, there are high expenses for the public coffers, a value that could be directed to other areas and even to road safety.
In the police reports, this number is five deaths for 2013 and 2014 and four deaths for 2015. This difference can be explained, because the number of deaths described in TARs and later in the surveys refers to deaths at the site, while data from DATASUS are obtained through medical records, notifications and death certificates from the health units in which these victims were treated. Queiroz (2003) explains that most victims of accidents do not die at the site, but in the health unit.
Silva (2007) describes the presumed causes for deaths that occurred during the period of study: 27% of the occurrences in 2002, 31% in 2003 and 11% in 2004 occurred due to speeding and, for the year 2004, the most presumed cause was disobedience at the STOP sign. These data reinforce the lack of kindness in traffic and respect for other road users.
Chagas (2011, p. 27) mentions that “Brazilian traffic department units produce information with a low degree of use and reliability, thus making it impossible to establish effective traffic safety policies”. Each document of a given unit that is used to record traffic accidents has a specific purpose and the lack of standardization of these information collection instruments makes it difficult to identify the elements causing these accidents.
This and other differences found in studies addressing the theme justify the need for a unified report, as this would avoid not only underreporting, but also the presence of duplicated data in the different documents. Unification would provide more reliable data and could thus serve as the basis for more effective actions to reduce the number of accidents.
By analyzing the data presented, we realized the impact of medical care services for accidents both on public health and on the lives of victims. In line with the study of IPEA (2003), the costs of traffic accidents were determined according to severity: accidents with victims or without victims for the year 2003.
It is important to highlight that the costs of accidents involve several aspects. One of them is pointed out by the National Observatory of Road Safety (ONSV, 2016), which shows a different study, because it relates the expenses of each State to the respective populations to obtain the per capita cost of traffic accidents, that is, each Brazilian spent R$ 255.69 throughout the year. In Goiás, the cost indicated was R$ 381.42. This cost means how much each citizen paid throughout the year, since the expenses with traffic accidents (hospitals, doctors, infrastructure, medicines, emergency care, among others) are paid through taxes. Consequently, this resource is no longer invested in improvements such as in health, education and basic sanitation, which could have been done by the respective governments, but were not done because of traffic accidents that could be avoided.
Therefore, to characterize the costs involved in a traffic accident, the IPEA and the National Association of Public Transport - ANTP conduct research on the economic and social costs of traffic accidents in urban agglomerations of the country. These studies make it possible to aggregate both direct and indirect costs generated by traffic accidents. In the 2003 survey, the costs reported were:
- Production Loss Cost: economic losses suffered by people, due to the temporary or permanent interruption of their production activities.
- Vehicle Damage Cost: repair or replacement of damaged vehicles.
- Medical-hospital Cost: value spent on the care and treatment of victims of traffic accidents.
- Lawsuit Cost: expenses arising from the lawsuits involved.
- Traffic Jam Cost: monetary value of the time lost by vehicle occupants retained in traffic accidents.
- Social Security Cost: pensions and benefits derived from accidents paid by Social Security.
- Victim Rescue Cost: transport of victims to the medical center.
- Vehicle Removal Cost.
- Cost of Damage to Urban Structure and to the Property of Third Parties damaged or destroyed due to traffic accidents.
- Other Costs: Cost of another Means of Transport; Costs of Damage to Traffic Signs; Cost of Police Service and Traffic Agents; Family Impact.
These costs represent all possible aspects to be considered regardless of the severity of the accident. Each situation will require, if not all, a significant number of them. In the case of motorcycle accidents, the severity factor can be much higher than that for cars. Thus, considering the costs mentioned, the study found the values shown in the second column of Table 1:
Table 1 - Brazil: cost of traffic accidents, by type of accident, 2013 to 2015.
Accident category
|
Unit Cost of each Accident
|
Correction index (Accumulated CPI )
|
Average unit cost of accidents updated per year
|
|
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
With victims
|
R$ 161,938.44
|
0.92
|
0.78
|
0.96
|
171,510.33
|
172,314.83
|
179,222.94
|
Without victims
|
R$ 3,262.00
|
0.92
|
0.78
|
0.96
|
3,454.81
|
3,471.02
|
3,610.17
|
Source: IPEA (2003) and Calculador (2018), with adaptations.
Organization: SILVA, Juliana Freitas (2018).
With the accident costs data for the year 2003, the prices for that year were updated for 2013 to 2015, the years of the data of accidents in Jataí. The values were updated using the CPI, obtained from information on the website of the Central Bank of Brazil. This index has been calculated since 1980 and is currently considered as Brazil’s official inflation index. To simplify the calculation of the correction index for the period from 2003 to 2013-2015, an average value was adopted for each year, which is the cumulative average of the accumulated index for each year.
After the calculations considering the CPI, the updated average cost of the traffic accidents per category with victim and without victim was determined. Then, based on the number of accidents per year, the average overall cost of traffic accidents for the city of Jataí was calculated. Table 2 shows the number of accidents that occurred each year in the city of Jataí and, based on the variation of the correction index accumulated in each year in the period from 2013 to 2015, Table 3 contains the updated values of the cost of traffic accidents in Brazil for the year 2003, bringing it to the years 2013 to 2015 in Jataí.
The average value of a traffic accident for the years 2013 to 2015 and the number of accidents for those same years were used to obtain the overall values of these accidents, which are the actual values of how much the accidents cost the municipality. The total is composed of the sum of the values corresponding to all years corrected with the CPI value. The values with victim and without victim were also summed to provide the actual dimension of unit and global costs, considering a relative and an accumulated frequency of the unit value.
It is important to mention that the official databases do not have complete information due to the underreporting of the occurrences. Therefore, in situations where the data are not complete, the system of averages is adopted in the numerical case and in qualitative cases, concepts of official surveys that support and substantiate the information, because it is carried out with national surveys and with reliability required in scientific research.
The values in Table 2 were obtained with the total of 2,215 traffic accidents, considering only those that occurred on urban roads and involving motorcyclists, which is the focus of this work.
Table 2 – Jataí (GO): number of traffic accidents involving motorcyclists, 2013 to 2015.
Accident Category
|
Number of Accidents per Year
|
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
With victims
|
300
|
364
|
198
|
Without victims
|
119
|
122
|
15
|
Total
|
419
|
486
|
213
|
Source: TAR of MP (2017)
Organization: SILVA, Juliana Freitas (2018).
When observing the figures above, it can be noted that the number of accidents with motorcyclists is quite high, although they do not represent the majority of accidents. When the three years are compared, of the 2,215 accidents, 50.47% involved motorcyclists. However, occurrences with motorcycles always cause more severe injuries, consequently higher costs, especially in the human factor, in terms of hospitalization, medical care, health and other aspects to be considered.
Table 3 – Jataí (GO): cost of traffic accidents involving motorcyclists, 2013 to 2015.
Accident Category
|
Total Average Cost of Accidents
|
Total
|
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
|
With victims
|
R$ 5,145,309.90
|
R$ 6,272,259.81
|
R$ 3,548,614.21
|
R$ 14,966,183.92
|
Without victims
|
R$ 411,122.39
|
R$ 423,464.44
|
R$ 54,152.55
|
R$ 888,739.38
|
Total
|
R$ 5,556,432.29
|
R$ 6,695,724.25
|
R$ 3,602,766.76
|
R$ 15,854,923.30
|
Source: TAR of MP (2017) and IPEA (2003).
Organization: SILVA, Juliana Freitas (2018).
Based on the values shown in Table 3, it is possible observe the total amount spent with traffic accidents in Jataí. In total, R$ 15,854,923.30 were spent on material losses, medical-hospital costs, production loss for society, early retirements, and police and judicial costs, which could be relocated to sectors such as education, improvements in health care for the population, investments in road infrastructure, supervision and traffic engineering, among others.
In order to establish a relationship between the annual revenue of the city of Jataí, we found the annual revenue of the Municipal Health Fund for each of the years of the analyzed period. Then, we identified that the estimated value spent on traffic accidents represented 15% in 2013 and 2014 and 6.8% for 2015. The value of Health was selected, as it was the only one available for the period in question on the city’s website, and this sector is closely related to the consequences of accidents. The percentage can be verified in Table 4.
Table 4 - Jataí (GO): relationship between the value received by health and the costs of accidents, 2013 to 2015.
Year
|
Revenue
|
Cost with accidents
|
%
|
2013
|
R$ 35,999,483.94
|
R$ 5,556,432.29
|
15.43
|
2014
|
R$ 43,156,303.35
|
R$ 6,695,724.25
|
15.51
|
2015
|
R$ 52,969,307.77
|
R$ 3,602,766.76
|
6.8
|
Source: Prefeitura Municipal de Jataí (2018)
Organization: SILVA, Juliana Freitas (2018).
Mapping of traffic accidents involving motorcyclists in Jataí - GO
With the map it is possible to understand where the accidents occurred in Jataí and, as a result, one can develop strategies and point to resources that can minimize future occurrences. Figure 2 shows the density of accidents with motorcyclists that occurred at the intersections of the city.
In Figure 2, one can note that the highest concentration of accidents occurred in five neighborhoods, namely Setor Aeroporto, Antena, Central, Santa Maria I, Santa Maria II and Samuel Graham, which are the oldest neighborhoods of the city. When analyzing the accidents that occurred in 2013, there were some neighborhoods in which no accidents were reported, such as Setor Industrial, Fabriny, Cohacol5, Setor Sul to the south and Sítios do Recreio Alvorada to the north, Setor Colina and Jacutinga to the east. These neighborhoods have, as a similar characteristic, the presence of residences as well as only local shops, designed to meet some needs of their community.
Thus, most people do not stay in the neighborhoods during the day, because they do not work or study there. Instead, they use their residences largely at night and on weekends, so these places have characteristics of neighborhood-dormitory. Associated with this, Guth (2015) presents the neighborhood-dormitories as a result of real estate speculation, which causes people who are unable to buy a house in more central areas to move to more peripheral areas.
According to information obtained in the police reports, of the motorcycle accidents in 2015, about 10% occurred at an intersection that had a traffic circle or a rotary as a measure of traffic reduction and orientation. In 2014, almost 6% (28) occurred in the same situation and, in 2013, 8% of accidents occurred at an intersection with a rotary.
These data demonstrate that the physical conditions of municipal roads and their local particularities such as traffic signaling and control allow either reduction or increase in the occurrence of traffic accidents, as well as the behavior of drivers who use the system.
Traffic circles facilitate traffic, as they are well-defined areas and can guide vehicles as long as they also have driver priority signs and horizontal signs that help in identifying the locations of drivers and pedestrians. In 2013 alone, among the 419 accidents, 136 occurred with the presence of a STOP sign as traffic control, corresponding to 30% of the total. In other words, at intersections, the sign indicating the stop alone is not enough to reduce accidents.
In 2014, the number was even higher. Of the total of 486 accidents, 248 had only the STOP sign, resulting in 51% occurrences. In 2015, the number corresponded to 48% of the accidents. Therefore, when comparing traffic control strategies, the traffic circle is a good option. Among the numbers of the three years accumulated, the traffic control situation in which fewer accidents occurred was that with the presence of the Military Police Officer, totaling six (06) occurrences out of a total of 1,118 accidents.