Revisiting the relationship between traffic accidents, real economic activity and other factors in Spain.

This paper analyzes the relationship between road traffic accidents and real economic activity in Spain, using data on accidents, fatalities and injuries from January 1975 to December 2016. Our results show the historical asymmetric cyclical behavior of traffic accidents variables. This relationship is more evident for accidents and injuries, while fatalities have shown a different pattern since 2002. Besides using aggregate data, we have analyzed urban and nonurban accidents separately. We analyze the effect of economic variables, public policy interventions and other potential factors affecting traffic series. Regarding policy interventions, we confirm a permanent reduction in all accident rates associated with the mandatory use of seatbelts on car passengers since 1992. However, the penalty points system introduced in July 2006 has only had temporary effects. We have also shown the effect of economic variables such as Industrial Production Index, gasoline and diesel consumption and registration of new vehicles and, as a novelty, the benefits of using the composite coincident and leading indicators of the Spanish economy.

The relationship between road traffic accidents and real economic activity in Spain: common cycles and health issues.

This paper analyses the aggregate relationships between traffic accidents and real economic activity in Spain during the last 30 years. Our general approach is based on two basic assumptions: (1) the number of accidents depends on the use of cars and other exogenous variables, and (2) the level of economic activity affects variation in the stock of cars, as well as degree of utilization. We propose a novel turning point characterization for monthly seasonal data that allows to check whether economic and road accident cycles coincide and, to date the beginning and end of their respective cycles. Empirical results from this section are important in establishing posterior causal models and whether or not economic activity and road accidents have a common component in the long run and a varying lead-lag relationship, depending on the cycles. These models will be the basis to check when Spain will achieve the European Union figures in terms of the fatalities/accidents ratio under different scenarios. Empirical results as well as historical experiences from other European countries proved that reducing fatalities is not only a question of diminishing accidents rates.