Official economic valuations (costs) of a traffic accident fatality in 20 motorized countries are described. The economic valuation per fatality varies from 0.87 million Norwegian kroner to 17.80 million kroner. The mean value is 5.69 million kroner. An attempt is made to explain the differences in official cost estimates. The valuation method used in estimating the costs has major importance for the level of costs. Recently, a number of motorized countries have accepted the willingness-to-pay approach as the basis for the economic valuation of traffic accident fatalities. In these countries, this has led to major upward revisions of previous cost estimates.