hutton_d

If you look most of the cost is 'human costs' ..... Here's a recent email from an alias I'm on which sort of explains why they're costed so high and where the flaws are ...

"its dead easy, these silly sods, are saying the cost of a death is let's say originally 1.253 million This was contained in highways economic note one in 1999 . The figure has been adjusted by inflation ever since. hence the figure u hae been given of 1.4 million


made up of
fatal lost output £ 415,260:
medical £4,700 :
human costs £ 824,290;
police cost £ 1270 ,
insurance admin £200
property damage £7420
total £1,253,140

now then the human costs, are defined as pain, grief and suffering to the casualty, relatives and friends and for
fatal casualties, the intrinsic loss of enjoyment of life over and above the consumption of goods and services.
(where did they get the last 90 quid from ?)

anyway its all complete and utter Bollocks,

there can and never will be a value on pain grief and suffering, in economic terms. There can of course be a claim in a court for compensation, but that's a different matter . Likewise an insurance company can value a life in an insurance claim ( how many people are insured for 800,000, I may ask ) .Fact:
grief has no value.

I am not an economist, but I would also question the lost output figure of 400,000 .Why? whilst there is one person sitting on the dole que, ready to move onto the ladder of employment, a dead mans shoes will in 99 percent of cases be replaceable. thus no lost output, likewise no lost consumption, the non earner becomes
an earner and consumes.

In fact the total loss is in my book, using their figures about £ 13,000, and actually creates employment. Cars have to be rebuilt and the grave diggers get a job for a day. This may be grisly but is fact, offset by mourners taking a day off.. so what we are all talking about is a matter of 10,000's of thousands of pounds certainly not millions".

Dave