Fuel prices and road accident outcomes in New Zealand

Rohan Best*, Paul J. Burke

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent years have seen a spike in New Zealand's road death toll, a phenomenon also seen in some other countries such as Australia. This paper analyses the short-run impact of fuel prices on road accident outcomes in New Zealand, including the numbers of road deaths, accidents, and injuries. Using data for the period 1989–2017, we find a negative relationship between fuel prices and key road-risk outcome variables, including the number of road deaths. There are similar results for models in levels and first differences. The number of serious injuries to cyclists tends to increase when fuel prices are high, however. Lower fuel prices appear to have contributed to New Zealand's recent uptick in road accidents, pushing against the long-term trend of improved road safety.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)109-124
Number of pages16
JournalNew Zealand Economic Papers
Volume53
Issue number2
Early online date28 Nov 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Fuel price
  • road accident death
  • road accident injury

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