Car crash deaths have surged during Covid-19 pandemic | Hacker News Reader

Car crash deaths have surged during Covid-19 pandemic

latimes.com

28 pointslxm37 comments

Anecdotally a _lot_ of people I know have become significantly less civic minded as a result of the way that coronavirus has been handled.

Basically, they figure, well, the law became insane (lockdowns, business restrictions, silly rules, general kafkaesque atmosphere) - why should I give a toss any more.

If it's illegal to visit your mum and you break the law for that, suddenly a lot of previously verboten activities are open.

There is the whole thing about how society starts to break down once norms get ignored. Normally this gets brought up in relation to some right wing populist thing, but it applies equally to the way governments all around the world have thrown away any notion of personal freedom over the last two years. Covid hystericism is not going to be without consequence.

Agreed. I definitely take the government less seriously now. And I was a socialist before this happened. But there must be a balance. Especially the first lockdown when we needed a piece of paper with a reason to go out.

I know some measures were needed but the heavy-handedness was crazy and in some ways still is. If it had been ebola on the loose I would have understood. Especially now that most of us are vaccinated (yes me too).

It made me do more risky things like get a tattoo which I've always kinda wanted, and not really care about seatbelts anymore. For me the reason is mainly that I don't care as much for the quality of life that's left now with masks and QR codes and constant vigilance so I don't really care as much if I'd die in a car crash.

But I'm not sure if that reasoning applies to everyone. But I think it's also that we can't care about so many things all the time. They added a huge load of new things to worry about and I think it's natural that others will suffer. Like road safety and the environment.

If you are not convinced of the benefits to yourself of using a seatbelt at this point I don't think you can claim your positions to be rational

It's ok to have emotional, irrational, positions. But you are better off knowing that is what they are

I think that's why he brought up this example. He knows it's irrational.

Since you were level headed enough to make this comment, don't you think some introspection is in order? Come on now. Mask Requirement -> Might as well die in a car crash, that doesn't sound particularly sane.

Well what I didn't mention is that I had a childhood illness that caused me to almost suffocate several times. Because of this I'm extremely sensitive to anything interfering with my respiration and especially high humidity (because the treatment involved breathing steam).

For me it feels awful to wear a mask and gives me constant anxiety, especially after an hour or so. Once the situation is more stable I want to move to a place that doesn't mandate them but it is a big worry and uncertainty and that makes me depressed.

Anyway it's kind of personal that's why I didn't mention this. I wear the mask where needed but I'm afraid they will become the norm because that would really hurt me. I feel left out of society. But I think other people do too, just with different specifics.

I also said I cared less. It's not that I don't care at all. It just shifted things down a bit on the scale of importance if you know what I mean. Before I would wear a seatbelt even when parking the car around the block, now I wouldn't bother. For a longer trip I still would.

You can pretend it doesn't make a difference, but restricting people is not "free". That's the whole point of the article - make peoples lives worse and take away their agency and they will act accordingly. Repeating "it's not a big deal" about the restrictions doesn't change anything

USA here, I trust the government less now but for the opposite reason: when it came down to actually enforcing covid restrictions during this disaster, they utterly failed. Everyone was out horsing around, shopping, dining out, ignoring the mandates, and there was zero enforcement. Everything was half assed and even the politicians were flouting the rules. All talk and no action.

“Everyone was out horsing around, shopping, dining out, ignoring the mandates, and there was zero enforcement. Everything was half assed and even the politicians were flouting the rules. All talk and no action.”

That’s because everyone can see now that there are no bodies piling up in the streets, and while hospitals are busy they’ve still not been truly overwhelmed - even though we’ve been repeatedly told that they would be for 20 months. Life is too precious to let it slip by without living.

As for the lack of enforcement, good! If politicians go the “do as I say, not as I do” route, there’d be civil unrest, and rightfully so.

I agree with you, but why all the posturing by the politicians? That’s what I don’t understand.

The article is heavy on opinions and anecdotes, but some data can be found toward the mid-bottom:

> In one of the clearest indications of rising recklessness, fatal accidents involving just one vehicle also rose disproportionally.

> The data also show an outsized increase in deadly accidents involving speeding, illegal substances or a failure to wear a seatbelt.

> Since the start of the pandemic, a larger share of accident victims — including those who survived — have been ejected from their vehicles, typically because they were not wearing seatbelts.

> Making the roads even more dangerous is rising drug and alcohol use. In one survey, more than 7% of adults said they were more likely to drive while impaired than they were before the pandemic.

> Federal researchers who looked at accidents in which drivers were killed or seriously injured found that the proportion who tested positive for opioids nearly doubled after the pandemic began. Marijuana use also rose considerably.

> Finally, more drivers are distracted. Researchers used GPS and other data to determine that drivers used their phones more frequently after the pandemic began, and that the problem only worsened over time.

So: More drugs, less seatbelt wearing, higher speeds, and more distractions.

> In one of the clearest indications of rising recklessness, fatal accidents involving just one vehicle also rose disproportionally.

This is also an indication of suicide.

Yes, that's what I was thinking as well. Vehicles are a very popular tool for suicide, especially among young(er) men.

Rehash of

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-fatality-data-show...

About 3000 excess deaths.

> an estimated 38,680 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents an increase of about 7.2 percent as compared to the 36,096 fatalities reported in 2019. Preliminary data from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in 2020 decreased by about 430.2 billion miles, or about a 13.2-percent decrease.

Anecdotally I see higher risk driving every time I commute these days. I am used to people driving 10, 15, 20 MPH over the limit. You’ve always had to do that to avoid being run over. I am not used to people passing me in a turn-only lane on city streets, regularly driving on inside and outer shoulders on the interstate to do so, or violently swerving in traffic to slalom through traffic, all considerably faster than the prevailing speed of traffic. There are no rules anymore. I have no idea what to expect.

There has been a massive increase in people running red lights where I live, it's terrible. Over the last couple years I've seen more red lights driven through than my entire life prior.

This is funny I’ve also experienced about 3 times in the last year someone passing me on a neighborhood (1 lane each way) street or passing in the turn only lane, when I have never experienced that before. I thought maybe my driving had changed but maybe this is a wider trend.

If a person is "slaloming," they are not the ones driving dangerously or illegally. Those in the passing lane who fail to give way to overtaking traffic are.

Weaving in and out of traffic is much more dangerous than being overtaken by a speeder in the right lane.

I wonder how many of these accidents have automatic lane assist or braking as a contributing cause.

In my opinion, these features are inherently unsafe (braking hard regardless of road conditions when someone cuts in ahead of you, for example). But also, it seems plausible that the restrictive feeling of driving a vehicle with these features may contribute to the same "breakout arousal" phenomenon the article associates with lockdowns and mandates.

I rented a car with lane assist earlier this year, and it terrified me by trying to veer into a semi that had gone left of its lane

It would be nice if people paid more attention to the effects of the restrictions that are being made. But in the end this will just be used as an excuse to try and impose even more controls.

People’s behavior changed across the board. This was the biggest sudden shift in people’s behavior we (hopefully) will ever see. And because of that people picked up new habit and most of them are good.

The question is will these negative behaviors persist, or will some of the subside as society finds a new equilibrium?

"The question is will these negative behaviors persist"

If governments keep tightening the thumbscrews, they most certainly will.

People are being stretched to breaking point around the globe... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/man-killed-family-then-...

What habits do you think people picked up that were good? (serious question)

Sorry, wrote this comment late. I meant to say, “not good.”

My impression is that this is a US only problem. Is this correct? If so why?

Anecdotally, I've seen far more reckless driving this year on this side of the pond, too. But I don't have data to back it up...

Don't know about accidents but I've heard drivers have gotten more aggressive in Sydney (Australia) since covid.

This comes as a big surprise to me. Especially during the early lockdowns I was expecting closed bars and no commuting to reduce traffic fatalities.

You’re not alone. Even the car insurance companies predicted that lower traffic volume would result in fewer incidents and therefore fewer claims overall, to the point of refunding premiums in 2020.

Now, I could get in to how state insurance commissioners found that the companies didn’t refund customers enough…[1] But that’s a bit besides the point — there was a marked decline in monetary claims volume during the height of lockdown. Incidents may have been more severe, but overall volume was definitely lower according to the commissioner’s study in the state of California.

I guess if you just focus on fatalities, it still adds up, but it is still quite a surprising statistic given the circumstances.

[1] https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2...

I was surprised as well, but maybe it was the change in volume that made the change. In that, traffic used to completely suck, where it's hard to have severe crashes in traffic jammed rush hours. Then traffic basically disappeared, so people became used to higher speeds and being lackadaisical with their focus. Then start adding back some traffic but not enough for stop and go traffic. I'm just guessing there though.

I have been somewhat miffed that my rates didn't see an ounce of movement downwards. I already average less than 10,000 miles a year on a 2015 car, which has probably plummeted to easily less than 5,000 miles for each of the past two years, and yet my rates have still been ridiculous with no accidents.

It's interesting (read frustrating) that if you even get a simple traffic ticket your premiums immediately go up because the insurance's "numbers" tell them you're more likely to need a payout, but then when you literally don't drive your car, their "numbers" suddenly don't tell them that you're statistically far less likely to need them.

I always had to inform my insurance company what my average annual mileage was. Maybe try getting another quote? It seems to me a ticket would be an event that could affect your rates, whereas simply driving less doesn’t produce any event that would trigger an algorithm to adjust your rate.

According to a few agent's I've spoken to, the insurance companies are able to pull mileage data from when you do maintenance, such as oil changes. Annual (low) mileage is already baked into my rates, but it's a minuscule if not negligible amount.

Who would have pulled you over for speeding / whatever?

People were easily going over 90mph on the freeways around here.

Increase of hustling delivery drivers doubling up on DoorDash and Uber Eats?

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