CDC Vital Signs: Motor Vehicle Crash Injuries – Costly but Preventable

More than 2.5 million Americans went to the emergency department (ED)—and nearly 200,000 were then hospitalized—for crash injuries in 2012. These crash injuries totaled $18 billion in lifetime medical costs and $33 billion in lifetime work lost costs, according to this month’s edition of CDC Vital Signs.

The best way to keep people safe and reduce costs is to prevent crashes from happening in the first place. But if a crash does occur, many injuries can still be avoided through the use of proven interventions.


Read this month’s Vital Signs to learn more about this issue and the steps that everyone can take to increase restraint use, reduce impaired driving, and improve teen driver safety.

• Vital Signs Fact Sheet: Motor Vehicle Crash Injuries
• Vital Signs MMWR: Health Burden and Medical Costs of Nonfatal Injuries to Motor Vehicle Occupants — United States, 2012