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This article uses crash data, highway classification, and traffic statistics to estimate the crash cost per truck vehicle mile traveled (VMT) from 2002 to 2006 for trucks that diverted from the Ohio Turnpike to avoid paying higher toll rates imposed by the Ohio Turnpike Authority. The data show that the truck crash cost per VMT is lowest for rural interstates such as the Turnpike and highest for the roads to which truck traffic diverted. Using the elasticity of demand for truck use of toll roads, we then estimate that the crash cost of trucks diverted from the Ohio Turnpike to other roads during 2004 at more than US$38 million, which far exceeds the revenue benefit. The article discusses implications of these results for road infrastructure pricing.

Little scholarly empirical work measures truckers' elasticity of demand for limited access toll roads. How do truckers respond to pricing signals? As price increases, how extensively do truckers divert from limited-access highways to secondary roads? At what price does this diversion impose costs on secondary highways? Using a unique data set, this article demonstrates empirically the extent to which pricing leads to diversion. Diversion is substantial, and elasticity becomes increasingly negative with higher tolls. This has significant policy implications. The diversion of large trucks probably creates an externality that, if it were priced, might cause the benefits of tolling to outweigh the costs. This diversion may have a safety cost because secondary roads are inherently less safe than limited-access divided highways. In addition, second-best truck routings may introduce costly deadweight losses to the economy, damaging interstate commerce. Profit-maximizing toll road operators might exacerbate this diversion to the detriment of public welfare.