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home / centre for automotive safety research / Publications / List / Details Publication Details| Title | Cost of traffic accidents | | Authors | McLean AJ | | Year | 1992 | | Type | Conference Paper | | Abstract | "When an ox gores a man or woman to death ... If the ox gores a slave or slave-girl, its owner shall pay thirty shekels of silver to their master.. . . " This quotation from the book of Exodus shows that the concept of the money value of a human being is not new. Fortunately we do prefer to regard a human life as having a value which we cannot measure adequately in economic terms. But this wholly desirable reverence for life can lead us astray when it is abused in claims such as "If this programme saves even one life then it is worthwhile". The fallacy in this attempt to justify the expenditure of funds should be obvious: if we had a choice of one of two equally-feasible lifesaving programmes we would select the one which is likely to save ten lives in preference to that which may save only one. To do otherwise would be to neglect the opportunity to save nine lives. | | Sponsor | The Finnish Association of Traffic Medicine (FATM), the Nordic Association for Traffic Medicine (NATM), the International Association for Accident and Traffic Medicine (IAATM), World Health Organization (WHO) | | Conference Name | 12th World Congress of the International Association for Accident and Traffic Medicine and 7th Nordic Conference on Traffic Medicine | | Conference Location | Helsinki, Finland | | Conference Date | 23-25 June 1992 | | Page Range | 39-52 | | Page Count | 14 | | Notes | Available from CASR library on request |
| Reference | | McLean AJ (1992). Cost of traffic accidents. 12th World Congress of the International Association for Accident and Traffic Medicine and 7th Nordic Conference on Traffic Medicine, (pp. 39-52). |
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