Analysis of relationship between traffic accidents and economic development in Turkey (1995-2017)

It is one of the biggest problems of our age around the world and in our country with the deaths and injuries caused by traffic accidents. In addition to the human losses caused by traffic accidents, they also bring significant charges on the economies of the countries. In particular, the economic development processes of underdeveloped and developing countries are closely affected. In this respect, the aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between traffic accidents and economic development. The area of the study is Turkey and the time period covered is 1995 and 2017. In the method followed, variables related to traffic accidents and economic development indicators were determined. The variables of traffic accidents are the number of accidents and the number of motor vehicles. The variables of economic development are human development and rule of law indices. The number of accidents is dependent and the other variables are independent. A Delayed Distributed Autoregressive (ARDL) cointegration model was established to analyze the short and long term relationship between variables. After that, the validity of the model was tested and short and long term relationships between the variables were determined and causality relation analysis was conducted. According to the results obtained in the study, short and long term relations between dependent and independent variables are available. Accordingly, the long-term relationship between number of accidents and economic development has been identified among the rule of law and human development indices. A long-term relationship with the number of motor vehicles is not available. According to the findings on the number of traffic accidents in the 1995-2017 period in Turkey, the most effective variable is human development index. According to the findings on the short-term, there is a relationship between the number of accidents and the rule of law and human development indexes. On the other hand, there is no short-term relationship with the number of motor vehicles. According to the short-term causality analysis between dependent variables and independent variables, one-way causality from number of motor vehicles and human development indexes to number of accidents are available. This conclusion shows that changes in the number of motor vehicles and human development indexes lead to a change in the number of traffic accidents.