Road Accidents And The National Economy: Legal Analysis

The present publication aims to conduct a legal analysis of the mutual influence of road accidents and the national economy, which is manifested at different levels of relevant public relations. The research subject is road accidents and the national economy. The publication’s methodology relies on an organic combination of well-known laws and techniques of dialectics (the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative, unity and struggle of opposites, and the negation of negation), general scientific methods of research (techniques of the logical method, comparative method, techniques of the sociological method, systemic and structural-functional methods), and special legal methods (legal statistics, formal-legal method, methods of comparative jurisprudence and legal modeling). Results. Road safety is inextricably linked with economic processes taking place in a particular state. In addition, as economic indicators affect the number of road accidents so the dynamics and consequences of road accidents significantly affect the national economy. The most important economic factors affecting the number of road accidents are as follows: underdeveloped road infrastructure, outdated vehicle fleet, poor financial and logistic support of law enforcement agencies, insufficient number of traffic enforcement cameras, and other innovative means of preventing road accidents. The priority in traffic accident prevention is the maximum automation of means ensuring road safety: coverage of all key traffic intersections with traffic enforcement cameras, equipment of modern cars with automatic speed limit systems and alcohol intoxication testers, which automatically block the ignition system, the development of a fleet of AI-based self-driving cars and automated traffic control systems. Other economic and administrative means of road accident prevention are equally important, i.e., financial incentives for compliance with traffic rules, development and improvement of public transport efficiency, and investments in multi-level road infrastructure to reduce traffic congestion in available highways and transport interchange.