1. Impaired driving can be prevented
Impaired driving kills > 16,000 and injures nearly 305,000 others every year.
Every 32 minutes, someone in the United States dies in an impaired driving crash
Every 2 minutes, someone is injured

2. Sobriety Check Points to reduce alcohol related crashes
Public Expenditure Analysis, Spring 2006
Ruth Salcedo
Yolanda Martínez
Jinxiang Liu

3. Sobriety Check Points to reduce alcohol related crashes
What are the costs?
What are the benefits?
How sensitive are our estimates?

4. Characteristics of the project
Number of checkpoints 156 per year (3 per week): Small scale 8 officers
Large scale 12 officers
Checkpoints are conducted at non work hours
Time spent per intervention : 5 minutes

5. Costs Personnel Equipment Time spent by drivers
Time spent by passengers
Mobility Loss
Trials
Publicity

6. Personnel costs per checkpoint
Hours per officer per checkpoint :
Police wages and fringe
(annual salary = 50,000) : $ 39.06
Overhead factor (1.5) : $ 58.59
Small scale : $ 5,391
Large scale : $ 8,086

7. Equipment costs per checkpoint
Equipment (5 year)
Vehicle or trailer
Equipment (1 year)
Traffic vests
Traffic cones
Flares
Breath testing devices
Flashlights with chargers
“Sobriety Checkpoint Ahead” sign
“Be Prepared To Stop” sign
Small scale: $ 67
Large scale: $ 82
Mini-cades
Brooms and shovels
Trash cans
Portable generator
Extension cords
Multi-directional portable lighting

8. Mobility loss per checkpoint

9. Costs of Time Delay Small scale : $ 514 Large scale : $ 823
Time value per driver : 90% of wage
Time value per passenger : 67.5% of wage
Vehicle occupancy rate : 1.5 people
Hourly earnings : $ 16.32
Vehicles will be intervened per checkpoint
240 in Small Scale
384 in Large Scale
% intervened drivers charged with DUI 1%
Small scale : $ 514
Large scale : $ 823

10. Other costs Cost per trials Small scale : $ 864 Large scale : $ 1,382
Publicity statewide: $ 300,000

11. Total Costs

12. Crashes Density per County

13. Crashes Density per County

14. Other scenario

15. 2. Benefit Analysis 2.1 Introduction and Summary of Findings
2.2 Economic Cost of alcohol-related crashes in PA in 2004
2.2.1 Methodology used in economic cost calculation
2.2.2 Estimate alcohol-related crashes in PA in 2004
2.3 Benefit of checkpoint program
2.3.1 Our Detailed Methodology
2.3.2 Our calculation and findings

16. 2.2.1 Findings: alcohol-related crashes in PA in 2004
# of crashes
Total economic cost
Cost savings in term of CBA
Fatalities
542
2.1 B
0.2 B
Nonfatal Injuries
26,983
2.9 B
0.3 B
PDO
134,913
0.37B
0.04 B
Total -
5.3 B
0.56 B
Per checkpoint 10296,20%
$ 103,205
$ 10,965
Per checkpoint 5148,15.3%
$ 157,904
$ 16,776
Go NPV

17. 2.2.1 Methodology used in economic cost calculation
The crashes can be classified into three groups:
Fatalities
Non-fatal injuries
Property-Damage Only (PDO)
Economic cost has five major components
Medical care cost
Public program cost
Property cost
Future earnings
Quality of life

18. One example

19. The economic cost of alcohol-related crashes in PA in 2004
Fatalities
Nonfatal Injuries
PDO
Reported
542
10,793
5,474
# of Incidence
26,983
134,913
Unit costs
3,800,000
107,000
2,715
Subtotal costs
2,059,600,000
2,887,127,500
366,287,438
Total costs
5,313,014,938
per checkpoint
103,205

20. A survey
If you are fond of swimming, do you agree the policy of banning swimming because swimming could lead to death?
No!
Absolutely No!
I will be very unhappy if I cannot swim.
I know I could be drown if I swim.
But I value the benefit of swimming higher than potential cost (death)
If you ban swim to save my life, I’m not willing to take that.
I hate this policy.

21. So is the alcohol-related crash policy
Expected Benefits:
Saved time
Saved cost for hotel, car rent
Mental experience
Expected Cost:
Various cost due to
fatal/nonfatal/PDO crashes
People make their traffic safety decisions by comparing their private benefits with their private costs.
They value the drive during drinking more than the risks of having a crash.
Private life-saving benefits for drunken drivers are at least offset by private costs

22. The majority of alcohol-related crashes involve one car: the car with drunk drivers
Most of crashes are intoxicated drivers having single-vehicle crashes and intoxicated pedestrians straying into traffic.
The proportion of the sober driver, the passenger with sober driver and sober nonoccupant among the total fatalities is low
2004: 14.3%
2003: 13.7%;
2001: 11.5;
1996: 11.7%;
1993: 14.5 %;
So * 15%

23. Benefit of Checkpoint program in PA in 2004
Fatalities
Nonfatal Injuries
PDO
Saved fatalities,
injuries and PDO 69
4,047
20,237
# of attributable 59
2,833
14,166
subtotal Benefits
222,870,000
303,148,388
38,460,181
Total Benefits
564,478,568
Reduction rate
20%
Total checkpoints
10,296
Benefit per
checkpoint
10,965
Comparison

24. NPV The costs in each future years are constant
The estimated number of fatalities in alcohol-related crashes remained essentially unchanged in recent years.
Persons Injured per year is also stable
The unit cost is calculated by bringing future value back.
We use 4% discount rate, from year 2007 to year 2020,(10,296 checkpoint, 20%)
Total savings
Per checkpoint
NPV of w/ drunk in 2006
11,224,405,982
1,090,172
NPV of w/o drunk in 2006
1,192,531,302
108,758

25. In a state wide checkpoint program, the benefits outweigh the costs 

26. Our analysis used a weighted average reduction rate

27. A 4% discount rate ensures consistency with our literature review
Cost and benefits of a community checkpoint program (Miller, Ted. 1995)
Composing costs calculation used a discount rate of 4%
The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, U.S. DOT
“This rate was selected because most long-term cumulative rates of return on stocks cluster around that number. Investors appear to prefer the higher, riskier returns from stocks to the more conservative Treasury Bills by a significant margin”

28. Investing in statewide checkpoint program
Checkpoints have proved to be efficient in reducing Alcohol related crashes
The program can be implemented in partnership with insurance companies.
19% Decrease
Of single vehicle injury crashes involving male drivers ages 21 to 40
British Columbia
(July to December 1995)
Reduction in crash costs for the insurer supporting the program was estimated to be 3.4 times greater than the costs of the program

29. Q & A

30. Appendix: Equipment sample
Portable breath testing devices
$ USD
Reflective safety traffic vests
High-Visibility Sweatshirt
$50.00 USD
Rechargeable flashlights
$18.00 USD
Razor-back shovel
$20 USD