Saudi Arabia loses around 13 billion Saudi riyals ($3.46 billion) annually because of car accidents, said a report issued on Saturday by the kingdom’s traffic department.
The losses include four billion riyals in human losses and 3.4 billion riyals in vehicles damages, the report said.
The head of traffic department Gen. Fahad Al-Bisher said in a statement that Saudi Arabia spends 734 million riyals annually on medical care for people involved in car accidents.
He added that the annual administrative cost of processing accidents in Saudi Arabia for his department is 326 million riyals.
The report also said that the average age of death causalities that result from car accident is 34 years, which means that 26 working years were lost for each person. The economic input of each 26 years is calculated in the annual economic losses of Saudi.
The report found that 65% of people with minor causalities need up to 20 days in hospitalised treatment and up to 70 days for rehabilitation.
On the other hand, 33% of the minor causalities need up to a full year in treatment and rehabilitation, which results in complete loss of full year economic input for each person. The remaining 2% end up in permanently handicapped that may require up to 15 years of treatment and rehabilitation.
Al-Bisher said this study is the first accurate study ever made in Saudi Arabia because its data was compiled by international agencies specializing in traffic studies.
He explained that earlier figures and reports were not accurate because they were based mainly on assumptions. Earlier figures on annual losses were jumping between eight billion to 40 billion riyals but there was no clear average on losses.
Al-Bisher said that the traffic department will start issuing the same report constantly for every year following this Islamic calendar year (1428 H). The Islamic calendar is the official calendar for ministries and government agencies in Saudi Arabia.
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