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Comment by onetimeusename | Hacker News Reader

I followed road traffic safety since 2020 closely (and have submitted and posted about it here) and traffic fatalities is slowly coming down since 2020. My hypothesis about it was that the empty roads in 2020 caused drivers to degenerate in terms of road manners. For example, deaths per mile actually increased in 2020 despite people driving fewer miles which suggests people drove less safely.

On the other hand this article says there was a 65% increase in significant incidents from the year prior to Sept. 30. So I think these are two different issues.

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I’ve noticed a pretty drastic decline in driving behavior around here. We’re seeing a LOT more just absolutely insane drivers doing things you’d only see in the worst of compilations a few years ago. Something happened during Covid that made people just not care anymore. Also doesn’t help that cops are not pulling people over as much as they should. Watched someone just yesterday fly through a red right in from of a cop that did nothing about it.

During peak-Covid, the roads were sometimes at 1/10th normal capacity, which also contributed to a weird driving euphoria, imo. Now the traffic and traffic jams are back, and peak speeds are returning to pre-Covid levels.

Yes. I think about this all the time. It's so strange, and aside from internet comments it doesn't seem to come up in the mainstream. What happened to people? Why do they not care? It's very evident in driving, but shows up in other areas as well.

Everything is going to shit.

It’ll hit you soon too.

Early in the pandemic some places stopped requiring road tests to get a license. There are probably quite a few drivers on the road that would never have passed.

Ya, to corroborate that I know road rage deaths increased in certain areas. There is evidence that people started speeding more too. Since people started speeding during 2020 (deaths per mile went up as total miles traveled went down) my thought was that maybe people became accustomed to not being policed and just started driving much more dangerously and then had a hard time adjusting back. I don't know. Reduced policing could also explain it, or maybe just a general decline in socialization. No one will look into it probably.

My pet theory has been that extended lockdowns caused regressions in people’s ability to drive safety, whether it was the actual skills to operate a vehicle, or people’s risk assessment skills.

Operating a vehicle is a skill like any other, and if you’re not performing reps you’ll regress like any other activity. Empty roads might even permit crappier driving.

ya that makes sense. we'll probably never know what happened :|

Perhaps, maybe, mass infection by a virus that affects the brain and vascular system has consequences for society.

It's an interesting hypothesis but should be easy to corroborate with other data, e.g. test scores. I would assume we'd have heard of that?

Isnt it a growing opinion of American teachers that students are underprepared? probably a combination of covid and remote learning... I doubt we will see the long term effects of this any time soon.

We have. The scores have fallen significantly.

If we're drawing connections between 2020 and driving behavior, the much more obvious correlation would be the massive anti-police-violence protests, the accompanying increased negative public sentiments re: police, and the police reaction that occasionally gets brought up on HN, decreased policing as retribution.

Underrated comment. Police have "quit" in more than one major city in sfbay.

I disagree. However, I'm used to going long stretches without driving and then suddenly driving hundreds of km/miles. I suspect, based on my wife's behavior and her driving, that before 2020, people were used to and happy with simply listening to music, a podcast, or something. After/during 2020, many people were no longer satisfied with that. They turned to listening to YouTube, movies, or even face-to-face calls while driving (hell, even my mom does this one), and holding the phone while trying to operate the vehicle.

It's almost like people forgot the most important part of driving: minimizing distractions. If I'm in a high-stress part of a drive (unfamiliar roads, high density, etc), I always turn off all media and ask all passengers to be quiet for a bit because I need all my senses. I don't know how many times I've been saved by hearing a car that I can't see yet.

And mine is that the lockdowns felt like an overreach and there was some kind of infantile rebellion

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