Traffic deaths rose 8 percent in 2020 despite fewer miles travelled

Preliminary data puts the death toll at 42,060, with 4.8 million people injured.

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[cerberusTI]

Considering the pandemic, I wonder how much of this is simply that the sane drivers are at home.

 

[Sabrewings]

Based off what I saw in May and June when I started going back to the office a little bit, I think everyone just forgot how to drive during the initial lock down.

 

[Derecho Imminent]

I suspect people are drinking more.

 

[pipe13]

Alternatively, we could just enforce our current speed limits. Decreasing the posted limit from 65 to 60 won't change much where the de facto limit is 73.

 

[CatsRidingRoombas]

It's the Darwin effect, those of us who drive like idiots are taking advantage of less traffic and taking even more chances.

 

[DC_Mike]

As someone who lives within sight of I95 I can attest that from Thursday to Sunday starting at 10p-until whenever, it straight sounds like test and tune night. You can audibly track speeding cars as they move from one point to another as they haul ass all through the night.

Then every few days I'll hear an engine roar followed by a "Fwhump!". About 20 minutes later I can see a line of brake lights through the trees and emergency vehicles parting the sea.

It's to the point where the family will perk up, look at each other and say "Ooooo! That was one!" when it happens.

 

[MeowTeChing]

Considering the pandemic, I wonder how much of this is simply that the sane drivers are at home.

I think everyone just forgot how to drive during the initial lock down.

I suspect people are drinking more.

All of the above(?)

 

[chalex]

Alternatively, we could just enforce our current speed limits. Decreasing the posted limit from 65 to 60 won't change much where the de facto limit is 73.

I got into a big flamewar online a few years ago (after the Google self-driving car got ticketed for going 25 in a 35) where I learned that "speed limit" in the USA means "recommended travel speed". And also everyone is taught to go 7 over the "speed limit". But of course you could still be ticketed for going over the "speed limit".

 

[Moonshinefe]

Seems likely it's at least in part a reflection of our collective mental health as a society right now.

 

[mjeffer]

Ever since about a month into the pandemic, my city's had a huge problem with late night street racing going on. They've increased patrols, given a shitload of tickets and arrested people, yet it keeps on happening. I've even been on the interstate, myself going with traffic at about 80 and seen 6 high end sports cars go zooming by swerving in and out of moderate traffic racing each other. None of this crap ever happened before the pandemic. This doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[Rabbit0864]

In England, we saw an increase in fatalities to pedestrians and cyclists during the first lockdown. Not sure about fatalities for vehicle occupants though.

 

[Rainywolf]

yep driving faster due to lack of traffic. This also encourages idiots to weave through traffic and drive even faster.

Example I drive on a short highway section speed is "50", I drive 60-65. Weavers drive 70-90. So any crash is much more damaging than before.

 

[jandrese]

I think it's COVID depressing the total traffic down below the point where it forms spontaneous traffic jams, allowing people to move faster on average. I've been stuck commuting to work during the pandemic and the number of times I've been caught in a traffic jam in the past year is I think once, and it was a very short one. It used to be I was stuck in stop and go traffic every time I drove.

Weirdly, it also used to be the case that there would be an accident somewhere along the road just about every day. I can't remember the last time I've seen an accident or even the aftermath. I wonder what the numbers look like for non-injury traffic incidents compared to 2019?

 

[marinejld]

I travel throughout parts of the southern US and I found that about Mar/Apr of 2020 there was very little traffic on the roads AND I rarely if ever saw LE out. During this time in the south the temps are warm enough for windows to be down and it feels great. With less vehicles on the road overall and the lack of LE I supposed folks just figured they could just gun it and go.

No telling how many times I was doing 85 somewhere on an interstate in the Carolinas only to be passed by multiple vehicles going at a much higher rate of speed.

Lowering the speed limit won't do squat. Even before the pandemic most roads I'm on there is the posted speed limit then the speed everyone drives on that road. If everyone is doing 15-20 over in a 55 zone the chances of being pulled over are very small.

Education of what happens when you clip another vehicle, blow a tire, or hydroplane even doing 40 would probably help.

 

[TheTripod]

Also perhaps some people gets rusty with their driving skills.

 

[Fatesrider]

Considering the pandemic, I wonder how much of this is simply that the sane drivers are at home.

People who speed are naturally non-compliant, so there may be something to that.

I do know that on the infrequent times I've gone out, I've seen a LOT more reckless behavior from my fellow roadies. I'm also seeing FAR MORE people being pulled over for it.

The enforcement doesn't seem to have much of an impact on improving compliance.

But it's pretty shocking that the fatality rates went up SO MUCH considering how much the miles driven went down. According to current speculation, much of that was due to higher average freeway speeds in general. But on what kind of streets were most of the accidents? Freeways?

Another factor is that most compliant folks tend to drive smaller vehicles.

Large SUV's and pick-ups have more inherent kinetic energy than smaller vehicles, and that energy has to go somewhere in a crash (often into the cabs, since trucks aren't built to the same crash safety standards as cars are, relying on more material to slow down over a longer period - rendered moot in higher-speed crashes, of course).

I expect the reasons behind the shocking increase in fatalities and accidents will involve a combination of these factors - not just one or two.

 

[FreeRangeOrganicSoyLatteCappuccino]

Articles on other sites I've read on this issue have mentioned significant increases in alcohol/drug intoxication associated with these accidents. They didn't, however, mention if the increase in driving under the influence was significant enough to account for all the increased vehicular deaths.

 

[ZippyPeanut]

"One culprit may well be reckless driving."

Ya think?

That's certainly true where I live. The cops are demoralized and aren't enforcing driving violations. Not only did I have this "feeling," a personal friend who's a lieutenant on our police force told me so. And the nuts know it and drive accordingly.

 

[SharpieFiend]

There were fewer cars on the road, so people were driving faster. Speed kills.

 

[FreeRangeOrganicSoyLatteCappuccino]

Another factor is that most compliant folks tend to drive smaller vehicles.

That hasn't been my experience. Where I live people driving large or expensive cars tend to drive more safely. I see lots of little subcompacts, on tiny wheels with no traction, weaving in and out of traffic.

 

[NorthGuy]

Just drove into work for the first time in months. Man oh man are my skills rusty. I mistimed a few things that could have gotten dicey...

 

[slomustang]

In addition to the aforementioned points, it seems as folks got behind the wheel again their traffic patterns were likely different (less people on the road, adjusted office hours, etc.) they didn't have a point of reference for speed and direction during their vehicle trips. If you were only driving in traffic to and from work at low speeds and now speeds are higher and you haven't been behind the wheel in a while...that can be an unexpected adjustment.

Purely anecdotal, but that seems to be a factor I've noticed (I've never been off during the past year).

 

[Scandinavian Film]

Alternatively, we could just enforce our current speed limits. Decreasing the posted limit from 65 to 60 won't change much where the de facto limit is 73.

I got into a big flamewar online a few years ago (after the Google self-driving car got ticketed for going 25 in a 35) where I learned that "speed limit" in the USA means "recommended travel speed". And also everyone is taught to go 7 over the "speed limit". But of course you could still be ticketed for going over the "speed limit".

There's a counterintuitive observation that widening a road (whilst keeping the speed limit the same) actually makes it more dangerous. If speeds are kept constant, a wider road will indeed be safer, but what happens is that some drivers stick to the original speed limit (because they like following rules or can't afford a speeding ticket), but most raise their speed to match the widened road, so now there's a mismatch of speeds on the road and the rate of accidents goes up. The logical response, then, would be to instead make problem roads narrower so that drivers slow down on their own, but that can be politically difficult in areas where most people travel by car, and it would also decrease revenue from speeding tickets. The latter sounds very cynical, but in my mind it's a consequence of North American cities & towns having to maintain much more road surface per capita than other parts of the world, raising costs in ways people often don't realize.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Initially it seemed to be about the empty roads meaning there was nothing stopping people from going way too fast. Lately though Los Angeles traffic has been picking back up a bit, not to pre-pandemic levels but to the point where you will hit significant slowdowns on the freeways and what-not, and people are still driving insanely aggressively. Just the other day I saw someone barreling around like a fucking lunatic, weaving around at what must have been at least 50 in a 30, going completely over the double lines and driving in the wrong direction going directly at me all in order to get around someone. And that's hardly the only completely unnecessarily aggressive driving I've seen lately.

Maybe it's from people being on edge? But whatever the root cause what we're seeing is a perfect example of how if you want people to drive a certain way then you need to design your streets to force drivers to do that. E.g. how most drivers will naturally slow down in a place with narrow streets and naturally unwittingly speed up on boulevards built to essentially freeway standards. You simply cannot get the outcomes decisionmakers claim to want through a combo of awareness and enforcement.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Alternatively, we could just enforce our current speed limits. Decreasing the posted limit from 65 to 60 won't change much where the de facto limit is 73.

I got into a big flamewar online a few years ago (after the Google self-driving car got ticketed for going 25 in a 35) where I learned that "speed limit" in the USA means "recommended travel speed". And also everyone is taught to go 7 over the "speed limit". But of course you could still be ticketed for going over the "speed limit".

There's a counterintuitive observation that widening a road (whilst keeping the speed limit the same) actually makes it more dangerous. If speeds are kept constant, a wider road will indeed be safer, but what happens is that some drivers stick to the original speed limit (because they like following rules or can't afford a speeding ticket), but most raise their speed to match the widened road, so now there's a mismatch of speeds on the road and the rate of accidents goes up. The logical response, then, would be to instead make problem roads narrower so that drivers slow down on their own, but that can be politically difficult in areas where most people travel by car, and it would also decrease revenue from speeding tickets. The latter sounds very cynical, but in my mind it's a consequence of North American cities & towns having to maintain much more road surface per capita than other parts of the world, raising costs in ways people often don't realize.

After WWII, the only real guidance on road design were the interstate design manuals. So city planners cribbed them and started designing surface streets to freeway standards. Wide lanes, wide streets, long straightaways with stuff like trees removed both to improve sightlines and to avoid people from crashing into them if they fucked up and lost control of the car; all completely inappropriate design choices for urban streets (freeway means free of obstructions like cross-traffic and pedestrians, it has nothing to do with whether or not there's tolls). The natural outcome is that people start driving fast on them because every single design cue is telling you it's okay to speed up. Sticking a 35 mph sign on the street doesn't change that, there have been plenty of times I'm going along when Wilshire or Santa Monica Boulevard is empty thinking I'm going the speed limit and then I look down and see I'm going 50, and it's all because those boulevards are designed to feel comfortable at those speeds, the converse of which is that the actual posted limit of 35 makes you feel like you're crawling along at 20.

 

[malor]

Hypothesis: people who didn't care about risk were the dominant drivers in 2020. Combine that with relatively empty roads, and reckless driving, excessive speeds, and unexpected deaths were much higher than normal.

 

[cerberusTI]

Considering the pandemic, I wonder how much of this is simply that the sane drivers are at home.

People who speed are naturally non-compliant, so there may be something to that.

I do know that on the infrequent times I've gone out, I've seen a LOT more reckless behavior from my fellow roadies. I'm also seeing FAR MORE people being pulled over for it.

The enforcement doesn't seem to have much of an impact on improving compliance.

But it's pretty shocking that the fatality rates went up SO MUCH considering how much the miles driven went down. According to current speculation, much of that was due to higher average freeway speeds in general. But on what kind of streets were most of the accidents? Freeways?

Another factor is that most compliant folks tend to drive smaller vehicles.

Large SUV's and pick-ups have more inherent kinetic energy than smaller vehicles, and that energy has to go somewhere in a crash (often into the cabs, since trucks aren't built to the same crash safety standards as cars are, relying on more material to slow down over a longer period - rendered moot in higher-speed crashes, of course).

I expect the reasons behind the shocking increase in fatalities and accidents will involve a combination of these factors - not just one or two.

It is not even just compliance with the rules, you also lose those who would not unnecessarily go out under the current conditions as they do not like the risk of ending up on a ventilator or in a box, and would not contribute to the problem, rules or not.

Between the two groups that is likely most of the defensive drivers.

The chemical analogy is that it is like pulling the nitrogen out of some air. The driving population is less inert, and when you add a bit of fuel to the mix you can expect it to get exciting with greater frequency.

Speaking of oxygen, the long term effects of covid are probably not doing us any favors here either.

 

[Unclebugs]

During the pandemic I have transited from El Paso, TX, to Mesa, AZ, half a dozen times. Once from Memphis, TX, to Durham, NC, and few times from El Paso, TX, to Lubbock, TX. Traffic was much sparser last Spring compared to recently. What I did notice was the rate of speed of semi-trucks as a former OTR driver, and it was much higher. The speed limit is mostly 75mph between El Paso and Mesa, and most trucks were keeping up with me while most civilian traffic was passing me at my cruise control setting of 77 mph. Whenever I stopped at a state-run rest area, mask compliance was about fifty-fifty, worse in the SE New Mexico oil patch and in Lubbock. It seems to me an entire sector of our country has decided that the will drive however they damn well please as I have seen many more accidents in my area than I'm used to, many of the T-bone variety.

 

[jagerz]

There were fewer cars on the road, so people were driving faster. Speed kills.

When our lockdowns started and the roads were sparse, pretty much everyone was driving as fast as they normally might in light traffic (definitely above the speed limit). But there were often a handful of people who wanted to shave 10 seconds off their trip by weaving between every lane with minimal distance. Now that the roads are relatively congested again it's rare to see anyone going too crazy.

 

[Hap]

Ever since about a month into the pandemic, my city's had a huge problem with late night street racing going on. They've increased patrols, given a shitload of tickets and arrested people, yet it keeps on happening. I've even been on the interstate, myself going with traffic at about 80 and seen 6 high end sports cars go zooming by swerving in and out of moderate traffic racing each other. None of this crap ever happened before the pandemic. This doesn't surprise me at all.

I saw this happen all the time before the pandemic (and 30 years ago I might have been one of them - I'm more responsible now). I just think there more opportunities now.

 

[Bloater51]

In England, we saw an increase in fatalities to pedestrians and cyclists during the first lockdown. Not sure about fatalities for vehicle occupants though.

The number of deaths and serious injuries in the roads fell by 70% in England during the first lockdown. There was a big increase in people walking and cycling, so some increase in casualties there was to expected. We do not have the annual figures yet. The UK, of course, has a lower road casualty rate than almost any country in Europe, and significantly lower than the US even in a good year. Driving standards are different, and whilst there will always be idiots most drivers are habituated to avoiding other vehicles. Mind you, I am amazed how many incidents in my area are reported as single vehicle; anyone driving too fast or without sufficient skill is likely to be caught out by the narrow twisting roads.

 

[Hap]

And for those talking about logic/risks. Keep in mind that driving fast is an adrenaline and endorphin rush for some folks. It's just like a high. Most of those folks are going to disregard risks for the thrill. I'm not saying it's right - it's just the way it is. Appealing to logic in those cases is rarely going to work - only enforcement.

 

[graylshaped]

Fewer people on the roads leading to open roads, plus stir-crazy folks acting up when they do get out...

 

[Zennikku]

I am a claims adjuster who handles injury claims in multiple states. Both my anecdotal experience and the industry trends my company shares with me both confirm a lot of reckless driving. I've seen so many single vehicle accidents with people rolling at high speed. Rear end accidents, side collisions, all kinds have been increasing.

Not sure exactly the cause but people need to calm down on the roads out there.

edited for spelling and other grammar mistakes