THE cost of road crashes in West Yorkshire has reached a staggering £650m a year.

A fatal smash can cost £1m with serious ones put at £200,000 - and the average is just under £89,000.

The statistics have been compiled by the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership which is warning that the number of deaths on the county's roads are set to rise this year compared to 2005 when the toll dropped to 99 - below 100 for the first time since the 1920s.

The costs include damage to vehicles and lost working days for people hurt, ambulance costs, police investigation time and also court case costs.

And the revelation also comes after the Examiner revealed this week the astronomical costs of motorway hold-ups, often caused by fatal smashes.

Money experts reckon that to shut the cross-Pennine motorway and the chaos it causes costs the economy £1m per minute with people missing work and deliveries not arriving when they should.

Partnership chairman Steve Thornton said: "You can't put a value on someone's life or if they receive injuries that incapacitate them. Nor can you put a price on the pain, grief and suffering to the casualty, their family and their friends."

In many cases crashes were not accidents in the sense they were unforseeable and unavoidable.

"Often they were caused by unsafe driver behaviour, either deliberate or careless, such as speeding, inattention or distraction or by premeditated and reckless acts of law-breaking.

"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."