A Look at the High Costs of Deadly Car Accidents in
Missouri & Illinois
The costs of even just one fatal car accident can be indelible to the family who has lost a loved one in that crash. While it may be easy to put a price on the medical bills or funeral costs, the permanent loss of companionship can be as indescribable as it may be unquantifiable.
What researchers have been able to measure, however are the costs that fatal traffic accidents have in terms of medical costs and lost productivity. And officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recent done just that, calculating the national costs, as well as the individual state costs.
While their analysis reportedly discovered that deadly auto accidents in the U.S. cost at least $44 billion annually, the following table features the costs for Missouri and Illinois:
| Â | Medical Costs | Wok Loss Costs | Total |
| Missouri | $8 million | $973 million | $981 million |
| Illinois | $13 million | $1.39 billion | $1.41 billion |
Fatal Car Crash Costs, Broken Down by Type of Road User
| Â | Motor Vehicle Occupants | Motorcyclists | Pedestrians | Bicyclists |
| Missouri | $210 million | $86 million | $113 million | $5 million |
| Illinois | $380 million | $205 million | $206 million | $48 million |
Car Accident Prevention
To reduce the costs of deadly motor vehicle accidents – and to save lives, transportation safety officials urge motorists to take responsibility for their own safety and actions behind the wheel. After all, about 94 percent of all traffic crashes are caused by human errors, and many of these errors involve driver mistakes and/or negligent.
On a state- and national-level, however, CDC officials have made the following policy recommendations in order to reduce the incidence of fatal traffic crashes:
- Continue graduated drivers’ license programs for inexperienced teenage drivers
- Conduct more sobriety checkpoints to deter impaired driving (and take impaired motorists off of the roads)
- Enhance ignition interlock device (IID) requirements for those convicted of DUIs.
Contact a St Louis Car Accident Lawyer at Brown & Brown Attorneys at Law
If you have been hurt in a car accident – or if someone you love has been killed in a traffic crash, contact an experienced St Louis car accident lawyer at Brown & Brown Attorneys at Law to find out more about your recovery options – and to receive aggressive legal advocacy moving forward.
At Brown & Brown, our attorneys are committed to providing injured people with personalized, high-quality legal services as we work diligently to bring their case to the best possible resolution.
To learn more about how we can help you, attend a free, no obligations initial consult with a St Louis car accident lawyer at Brown & Brown. You can schedule this meeting by calling us at 573-333-3333 for our Missouri office or at 618-888-8888 for our Illinois office. You can also email us using the form at the right-hand side of the screen.
