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Too high a price...
Page 8
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Care to put a price on your life? How about the life of one of your drivers? Every year the cost of road accidents in the European Union amounts to around 124bn. Last year across the EU road traffic accidents killed 41,000 people and injured a staggering 1.7m people. And while we rightly continue to mourn the appalling loss of life arising out of the terrorist attacks of ii September, in reality up to eight times that number die every year on European roads.
It's tempting to look across the Channel for improvements. Maybe because out of the 16 Western European Countries, France, Germany, Spain and Turkey account for 67% of all road deaths between them. But the UK still notches up around 3,500 deaths every year—and a third to half of those involve people driving for a living.
Road accidents aren't just about loss of life (although that's bad enough). According to official statistics the overall cost of all road accidents within the European Union is equivalent to 2% of its gross national product.
And no doubt many CM readers will have already experienced the knock-on effect of all this in their annual insurance renewal notice. No doubt you resent paying for somebody else's mistakes. Only
remember, the next time you're tempted to tell one of your drivers to get a move on, exactly what's at stake. The price of some jobs simply isn't worth paying.