United States passenger-vehicle crashes by crash geometry: direct costs and other losses.

The personal and societal losses caused by motor-vehicle crashes are significant. This paper provides tools that describe these losses for 30 different crash geometries. Persons involved with the development and implementation of crash countermeasures can use these tools to prioritize their countermeasure approach. Multiple vehicle crashes currently account for much larger direct costs but only slightly more years lost than single vehicle crashes. Direct expenditures on multiple vehicle crashes exceed $41 billion per year; they claim 974,000 years of life and functioning. Direct expenditures on single vehicle crashes exceed $18 billion per year; they claim 937,000 years of life and functioning.