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Traffic Accidents Cost Germany 7 Billion Euros Annually

A fatal collision between a tractor-trailer and a tour bus on Interstate 380 near Mount Pocono, Pa., killed at least three people Wednesday./(DAVID KIDWELL/AP)
A fatal collision between a tractor-trailer and a tour bus on Interstate 380 near Mount Pocono, Pa., killed at least three people Wednesday./(DAVID KIDWELL/AP)
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Traffic Accidents Cost Germany 7 Billion Euros Annually

A fatal collision between a tractor-trailer and a tour bus on Interstate 380 near Mount Pocono, Pa., killed at least three people Wednesday./(DAVID KIDWELL/AP)
A fatal collision between a tractor-trailer and a tour bus on Interstate 380 near Mount Pocono, Pa., killed at least three people Wednesday./(DAVID KIDWELL/AP)

German experts are trying to analyze the impact of traffic accidents’ huge cost on the budget of Berlin’s government. Although it is difficult to determine the final sum Germany pays each year, the total cost of traffic accidents - whether due to bicycles, motorcycles or various types of transport means- is estimated to reach billions of euros annually.

Veronica Templeman, an expert of traffic accidents and their causes, says the number of road deaths is continuously falling, mainly due to the safer and more sophisticated roads’ infrastructure thanks to today's technology.

Last year, for example, 3,214 casualties were recorded, with a decrease of 1.9% compared to 2016. In contrast, the number of wounded, whose injuries ranged from severe injuries, disabilities and minor injuries were about 400,000, with an increase of 0.8% compared to the previous year.

Over the past year, the police have recorded 2.6 million traffic accidents in general, up 2.8% from a year earlier. Among those accidents, some 2.3 million caused only material damages.

In the cases of casualties, whether death or injury, the cost of material compensation would be higher if the victim is a hard-to-replace experienced worker, in addition to the burden of the medical care services,
and treatment in hospitals, and all the psychological, physiological, and legal costs. The cost of a victim's death varies depending on the age group, efficiency and years of experience in the field of work.

The expert at the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (PEST) estimates the financial losses of each victim of a traffic accident in Germany to be between 0.6 and 1.2 million euros, based on the abovementioned criteria.

By comparison, according to Thomas Foster, an expert at the institute, the full costs paid by the US Department of Transportation for each victim of a traffic accident in the United States attain about $1.25 million. This is roughly equivalent to the amount paid by Berlin’s government to each victim.

This cost reached NZ $4.18 million, or US $ 2.47 million in New Zealand last year. In Switzerland, traffic accidents last year caused 216 casualties, 15% less than a year earlier, and the financial losses amounted between 270 and 540 million euros.

Germany, according to the expert, remains among the countries paying the highest financial and economic costs as its traffic accidents in Europe, with the death of about 3,314 people in 2017, in addition to the various injuries and material losses, and the total financial losses exceed 7 billion euros.

According to Claudia Ray of the Federal Ministry of Transport, the cost of traffic accidents involving human and material losses in the European Union reached 100 billion euros last year. Among one million people there, 52 are killed every year, compared to 106 deaths in the United States, and an average of 174 deaths per year in the rest of the world.

Malta and Sweden are among the countries with the lowest rate of traffic accidents in Europe. Malta has 26 victims out of a million citizens a year, and Sweden has only 27 victims each year.

Back to Germany, 46% of the traffic accidents’ deaths were caused by vehicles, 17% by motorcycle, and 8% by bicycle.

According to the expert, medical, judicial and insurance agencies are the main beneficiaries of traffic accidents. As the trend of electric vehicles with less speed is rapidly spreading in Europe, Ray expects a fall in the number of traffic fatalities by more than 30% this year, which is a very good news for the German government.

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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo

African elephants are Earth's largest land animals, remarkable mammals that are very intelligent and highly social. They also are in peril. Fresh evidence of this comes in a study that documents alarming population declines at numerous sites across the continent over about a half century.

Researchers unveiled on Monday what they called the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephant species - the savanna elephant and forest elephant - using data on population surveys conducted at 475 sites in 37 countries from 1964 through 2016.

The savanna elephant populations fell by about 70% on average at the surveyed sites and the forest elephant populations dropped by about 90% on average at the surveyed sites, with poaching and habitat loss the main drivers. All told, there was a 77% population decrease on average at the various surveyed sites, spanning both species, Reuters reported.

Elephants vanished at some sites while their populations increased in other places thanks to conservation efforts.

"A lot of the lost populations won't come back, and many low-density populations face continued pressures. We likely will lose more populations going forward," said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. Agricultural expansion is the top factor in habitat loss.

The forest elephant population is estimated to be about a third that of savanna elephants. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.

"We have lost a number of elephant populations across many countries, but the northern Sahel region of Africa - for example in Mali, Chad and Nigeria - has been particularly hard hit. High pressure and limited protection have culminated in populations being extirpated," Wittemyer said.

But in southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.

"We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role," Wittemyer said.

The study did not track a continent-wide population tally because the various surveys employed different methodologies over different time frames to estimate local elephant population density, making a unified head count impossible. Instead, it assessed population trends at each of the surveyed sites.

A population estimate by conservationists conducted separately from this study put the two species combined at between 415,000 and 540,000 elephants as of 2016, the last year of the study period. It remains the most recent comprehensive continent-wide estimate.

"The loss of large mammals is a significant ecological issue for Africa and the planet," said conservation ecologist and study co-author Dave Balfour, a research associate in the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The world's third extant elephant species, the slightly smaller Asian elephant, faces its own population crisis, with similar factors at play as in Africa.

Of African elephants, Wittemyer said, "While the trends are not good, it is important to recognize the successes we have had and continue to have. Learning how and where we can be successful in conserving elephants is as important as recognizing the severity of the decline they have experienced."

Wittemyer added of these elephants: "Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival."