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Comment by dawnerd | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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