4.3 Article

The causal effect of wrong-hand drive vehicles on road safety

Journal

ECONOMICS OF TRANSPORTATION
Volume 11-12, Issue -, Pages 15-22

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecotra.2017.10.002

Keywords

Road accidents; Sweden; Natural experiment; Synthetic control method

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Left-hand drive (LHD) vehicles share higher road accident risks under left-hand traffic because of blind spot areas. Due to low import prices, the number of wrong-hand drive vehicles skyrockets in emerging countries like Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. I identify the causal effect of wrong-hand drive vehicles on road safety employing a new backward version of the synthetic control method. Sweden switched from left-hand to right-hand traffic in 1967. Before 1967, however, almost all Swedish vehicles were LHD for reasons of international trade and Swedish customer demand. I match on accident figures in the period after 1967, when both Sweden and other European countries drove on the right and used LHD vehicles. Results show that right-hand traffic decreased road fatality, injury and accident risk in Sweden by approximately 30%. An earlier switch would have saved more than 4000 lives between 1953 and 1966.

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