The West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Fire marine casualty insurance revealed the average cost of a road accident is 88,810, with serious ones costing 200,000.

Fatal accidents can cost well over 1m, meaning that the year’s total of 7,277 crashes worked out at around 650m.

With a population in West Yorkshire of 2m, it equated to every man, woman and child paying 313, the report said.

‘Irresponsible and selfish’

Chairman Steve Thornton said many accidents were caused by unsafe driver behaviour.

“This means that the vast majority of decent, law-abiding citizens are paying an additional local ‘tax’ to pay for the irresponsible and selfish behaviour of the few.”

He said the costs were not just for hospital general casualty insurance. They included ambulances, casualty company general insurance, police time, vehicle and property damage, insurance costs and the loss of working days for casualty insurance.

There were also court case fees and the cost of benefit payments.