Common sense dictates, that one of the factors driving down volume in the accident repair industry at the moment, is the rising cost of fuel.

The logic goes, that higher fuel costs coupled with a squeeze on disposable income, means that fewer journeys are being made, especially for leisure purposes. Fewer driver miles will always mean fewer crashes, so the bodyshops will feel the pinch as petrol and diesel costs rise.

This is of course a global problem and will apply almost anywhere that the vehicle population is near its peak, a problem officially noted by the Mississippi State’s Social Science Research Centre in the USA. It has recently published a study in the Journal of Safety Research and Accident Analysis and Prevention, which analysed total traffic crashes between April 2004 and December 2008. This compared fuel prices to traffic safety statistics, factoring in other variables like age, gender and race. The report concluded, “The results suggest that prices have both short-term and intermediate-term effects on reducing traffic accidents.”

Interestingly, the study found that short term fuel price rises tended to reduce accidents in the young driver sector, while in the medium and long term, rising prices tended to reduce accidents for older drivers. The study also found that higher fuel costs significantly reduced the number of accidents caused by drink driving.