Discrete distributions when modeling the disability severity score of motor victims

Many European countries apply score systems to evaluate the disability severity of non-fatal motor victims under the law of third-party liability. The score is a non-negative integer with an upper bound at 100 that increases with severity. It may be automatically converted into financial terms and thus also reflects the compensation cost for disability. In this paper, standard and zero-altered discrete regression models are applied to model the disability severity score of victims. An application using data from Spain is provided in which the hurdle-Negative Binomial regression was the preferred method. The effects of victims' characteristics, type of road user and recovery duration are examined. The results suggest that the expected permanent disability severity is higher for older women with long recovery periods. The results provide traffic decision makers with a model to quantify the compensation cost savings due to disability severity reductions. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.