Public policy and highway safety: a city-wide perspective

Based upon a unique panel data of 418 incorporated cities and 57 unincorporated areas over a 108 month period from 1981 through 1989, this paper analyzes the highway safety effect of highway speed limits, seat belt use laws, the availability of alcohol, restrictions on the common site sale of gasoline and alcohol, and traffic enforcement. The estimation results find beneficial effects associated with traffic enforcement and speeding arrests appear to have a larger beneficial effect on fatal accidents than those for drinking and driving. There is little effect from speed limit and seat belt use laws. Increasing the number of alcohol licenses, on the other hand, leads to more fatal accidents. And the effect of banning the common site sale of alcohol and gasoline is to increase fatal accidents in incorporated cities outside metropolitan statistical areas but little effect elsewhere. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.