{"id":146513,"date":"2016-12-08T10:37:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T08:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=146513"},"modified":"2016-12-08T11:10:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T09:10:59","slug":"study-puts-a-price-on-the-value-of-life-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/146513\/study-puts-a-price-on-the-value-of-life-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Study puts a price on the value of life in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

A study conducted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa shows that the country lost R142 billion in 2015, as a direct result of costs arising from road traffic accidents<\/a><\/strong> that year.<\/p>\n

The group found that South Africa experienced 12,944 fatalities in 10,613 road accidents, incurring a cost to the economy of R142.95 billion rand.<\/p>\n

Of this amount, R99.03 billion was incurred in human casualty costs, R21.33 billion in vehicle repair costs and R22.60 billion in incident costs.<\/p>\n

The cost of human casualties\u00a0is broken down in terms of lost productivity (how much a person could have contributed, economically), associated pain, grief and suffering experienced, as well as a loss of quality of life, for survivors and.or those left behind.<\/p>\n

Other factors such as medical treatment, funeral processes, costs to companies to re-fill positions.<\/p>\n

According to the CSIR’s data, when someone is killed in a road accident, the total cost suffered (ie “value” of that lost life) is R5.23 million.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Cost<\/th>\nFatality<\/th>\nMajor injury<\/th>\nMinor injury<\/th>\nDamage only<\/th>\nAny severity<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Lost productivity<\/td>\n2 878 177<\/td>\n217 253<\/td>\n29 504<\/td>\n2 094<\/td>\n55 331<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pain, grief, suffering and lost quality of life<\/td>\n2 123 994<\/td>\n287 173<\/td>\n47 509<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n49 842<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Medical treatment<\/td>\n147 143<\/td>\n110 656<\/td>\n32 681<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n12 509<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Funeral<\/td>\n16 613<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n222<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Workplace re-occupation<\/td>\n68 638<\/td>\n2 949<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n1 061<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total Human Cost<\/strong><\/td>\n5 234 565<\/td>\n618 031<\/td>\n109 694<\/td>\n2 094<\/td>\n118 965<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While it may seem cold to put a number on a human life, such figures are vital in conducting cost-benefit analysis in a variety of sectors. For example, it is economically viable to spend R100 million on road safety measures to prevent an economic loss of \u00a0R1 billion.<\/p>\n

According to the CSIR, it’s important that such figures are looked at scientifically, though more research needs to be done into how road accidents impact South Africa’s healthcare system.<\/p>\n

Only through looking at all the data, can the true value of a life – or rather the true cost of accidents – be determined.<\/p>\n

In 2015, BusinessTech looked at various sources to determine the ‘value’ of a human life in the country, and found that\u00a0 a single life in South Africa is placed\u00a0 at anywhere between\u00a0R3.4 million and R24.2 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0How much money your life is actually worth in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A study conducted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa shows that the country lost R142 billion in 2015, as a direct result of costs arising from road traffic accidents that year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":48484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-146513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146513"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146583,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146513\/revisions\/146583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}