Can Air Pollution Save Lives? Air Quality and Risky Behaviors on Roads

TL;DR

This study investigates how air pollution influences risky driving behaviors and traffic accidents, finding that higher pollution levels decrease accidents caused by violations, mainly through visual impairment effects.

Contribution

It provides the first empirical evidence linking air pollution to reduced risky driving behaviors and traffic accidents, highlighting visual impairment as a key mechanism.

Findings

Air pollution significantly reduces violation-related accidents.

The effect of pollution on risky behaviors is nonlinear.

Visual impairment, not respiratory effects, primarily explains the behavior change.

Abstract

Air pollution has been linked to elevated levels of risk aversion. This paper provides the first evidence showing that such effect reduces life-threatening risky behaviors. We study the impact of air pollution on traffic accidents caused by risky driving behaviors, using the universe of accident records and high-resolution air quality data of Taiwan from 2009 to 2015. We find that air pollution significantly decreases accidents caused by driver violations, and that this effect is nonlinear. In addition, our results suggest that air pollution primarily reduces road users' risky behaviors through visual channels rather than through the respiratory system.