Gasoline Prices and Traffic Safety: Age and Gender Variations

Gasoline prices have significant effects on traffic safety. However, existing literature has failed to adequately investigate the effects: the literature has examined only fatal incidents rather than total traffic incidents. This study analyzes the effects of gasoline prices on total traffic incidents and on the incidents by age and gender. The results suggest that gasoline prices have negative short-term effects on traffic safety: as gasoline prices increase, overall traffic incident rates decrease. Gasoline prices have disproportionate effects in reducing traffic incident rates for young drivers and female drivers, longer-term effects on drivers who are 24 years and older, and no effects on male drivers. This study fills the gap in the literature by contributing to the understanding of gasoline price effects on traffic incidents by examining all traffic incidents instead of only fatal incidents and by examining incidents by age and gender.