The Pain of Road-Accident Victims and the Bereavement of their Relatives : A Contingent Valuation Experiment

The accurate description of the contingent market is a necessary condition for eliciting willingness-to-pay values. So far, however, the contingent market for a reduction in the risk of being the victim of a road accident has only been broadly specified. This Swiss experiment attempts to define the good to be purchased by respondents with greater precision. It concentrates on the human costs of road accidents, i.e., pain, suffering, and bereavement. Respondents were asked to consider themselves either as potential victims of a road accident or as relatives of potential victims and to state their willingness to pay to reduce the likelihood of such an accident occurring