A new online tool from the USA’s leading national public health institute will help communities better quantify the benefits of red-light and speed safety cameras, by calculating the economic benefits of the lives being saved and injuries prevented as a result of camera deployments. Accessible to the public, the tool from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) helps each of the 50 states identify the best mix of safety devices to implement, based on their cost-effectiveness and their capacity to prevent the most injuries and save the most lives. The interactive calculator, the Motor Vehicle Prioritizing Interventions and Cost Calculator for States (MV PICCS), estimates fatality and injury reduction results, along with customized cost-benefit analyses, for any combination of 12 different safety intervention tools: alcohol interlocks, bicycle helmets, license plate impoundment, limits on diversion, motorcycle helmets, red-light cameras, saturation patrols, seat-belt enforcement campaigns, seat belt law, sobriety checkpoints, speed cameras, and vehicle impoundment.
Traditional cost-benefit analyses or customized studies are among the reports visitors to MV PICCS can generate. For example, a user may plug in the state’s available budget for safety measures and receive a list of safety tools prioritized by their effectiveness and still within the amount budgeted. The user could also apply predicted fine revenue to operational costs and produce a prioritized list of safety tools, funded exclusively through fine revenue and ranked by effectiveness. The CDC reports also provide an estimated number of lives saved and injuries prevented for each safety tool based on research review and 2010 crash statistics. To quantify the approximate total financial benefit to the state selecting any of the 12 safety tools, MV PICCS monetizes the fatality and injury reductions to each state using the costs of: medical, emergency services, market productivity, household productivity, insurance administration, workplace costs, legal costs, travel delays, and property damage.
American Traffic Solutions (ATS), a leading provider of road safety cameras, recognizes MV PICCS as another means to enhance public awareness about the significant contributions red-light and speed cameras can make to any state whose leaders are formulating an effective way to deter dangerous motor vehicle crashes. “We continue to believe that motor vehicle crash numbers can best be reduced through enforcement, driver education and traffic engineering strategies,” said David Roberts, president and COO at ATS. “By including red-light and speed safety cameras in their interactive calculator, the CDC validates, as an independent third-party, the important place photo enforcement holds in any state, city or county level discussion on how to help enhance road safety and reduce the number of injuries or deaths that occur as a result of red-light running.”
MV PICCS can be viewed here
