Hacker News Reader

Comment by pugworthy | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "accidents" going way down, but at least in the US, fatalities have gone up. In the US, there were more traffic fatalities in 2020 since 2007.

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

View on HN

That's kinda wild and really counter-intuitive. From the article:

NHTSA’s research suggests that throughout the national public health emergency and associated lockdowns, driving patterns and behaviors changed significantly, and that drivers who remained on the roads engaged in more risky behavior, including speeding, failing to wear seat belts, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

It was a wonderful time when you could just drive as fast as you wanted without any significant repercussions. I’ll never forget.

Evidently that attitude is what lead to greater likelihood of 'repercussions' that average.

People were frustrated and arguably so. I agree with targeted lockdowns or even draconian lockdowns (if it would stop the pandemic on its heels). But it’s going to frustrate people. Social psychology would say such pent up frustration has to be released somewhere and we saw that in the rise in domestic violence, car accidents and crime. (I’m not trying to justify it. It’s the way it is. Next time we have a pandemic may be we’ll also factor in these indirect variables in decide the scope and duration).

Great time to set some records too apparently!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cannonball-coast-coast-...

Yeah I don't think that record will ever be broken. Until the next pandemic I suppose.

Early on in the pandemic when roads were fairly empty, the local cops operating the speed traps wouldn't pull anyone over -- they'd just stand on the side of the road waving at you and making 'slow down' hand signals. Glorious indeed...

Haha. I do recall my amazement at driving from San Mateo all the way to the Bay Bridge without my speed dropping below 80 mph.

Very mind blowing experience.

Also a cause of increased traffic fatalities it seems

When a mind is blown, sometimes it literally explodes.

I can see a few things driving this. First, I think that pretty much everybody was under more stress in that period -- anybody on the road would be less patient and less generous / more aggressive. Second, there's some sampling bias -- the people on the road would be either essential workers (underpaid, overworked, even more stressed) or oversampled from a risk-tolerant subset of the population (more inclined to see an open road as an opportunity to drive recklessly). The risk calculation of driving drunk would go down with emptier roads, too.

I think it's counterintuitive unless you account for the fact that it's intuitive to think that the roads will be empty, which should impact people's behavior. I don't think I would have bet either way, but post-facto justification seems pretty tidy.

Crime in general has been going up. Does this include DUIs and reckless driving?

I think the explanation is easier.

All the well to do white collar workers who circle jerk about how safe they are were in their home offices leaving the less safe demographics (basically just younger and poorer) on the road thereby increasing the average riskiness of the average road user, driven mile, etc, etc.

A recent article and HN discussion on that topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29492129

Fascinating, I hadn't seen that report. What I said was based on estimates made in 2020 and I never went back to check otherwise. Thanks, editing my comment now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com