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Alcohol-related crashes cost Montana $642 million, new report finds

MONTANA - Alcohol-related car crashes that injure Montana residents boost the overall cost of alcohol abuse to Montana's economy to $642 million, according to a new report by a University of Montana economist.

Steve Seninger, senior research professor at UM's Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said previous estimates gauged the economic cost of alcohol abuse in Montana at $511 million per year. While that figure included $96 million in alcohol-related fatalities, it did not factor in the cost of alcohol-related crashes with injuries, he said.

The economic cost of "injury crashes" adds $131 million to the total, Seninger said.

"Five people are injured or killed each day in Montana because of alcohol-related vehicle crashes," Seninger said. "This is a cost of $621,000 per day paid for by all Montanans."

According to Seninger, Montana averages about 135 alcohol-related highway and road fatalities every year, but the average number of people injured is approximately 1,700.

In the report, "Economic Costs of Alcohol-Related Vehicle Crashes in Montana," Seninger said victims of alcohol-related crashes suffer more severe injuries than victims from crashes not involving alcohol. State-collected data show that one-half of the alcohol-related crash injuries involve Montanans under the age of 30 and include high-speed rollovers and collisions with power poles, trees and concrete abutments.

The severity of alcohol crash injuries also result in lengthy hospital stays, Seninger said, with more than half of these hospitalizations lasting 24 days or more.

"More than half the people who come into the emergency room for injuries from an alcohol-related crash end up in the hospital for 24 days or more," he said. "I think that speaks to the severity of the injuries."

Seninger said each injured survivor of an alcohol-related crash in 2005 resulted in costs of $85,000.

He attributed 19 percent of that cost to productivity loss, 17 percent to property damage, 24 percent to health care and medical services, 19 percent to legal costs and insurance, and 20 percent to loss of quality of life, which includes costs to local law enforcement and emergency services.