Traffic Safety Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fatal Crashes in 2020–2022

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September 3rd, 2024

After a brief reduction during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, traffic fatalities in the United States surged to the highest levels in many years. Initially experts hypothesized that the increase was due in large part to reduced traffic volumes facilitating speeding. However, traffic fatality rates remained elevated throughout 2021 and 2022, despite traffic returning to near pre-pandemic levels. The research reported here seeks to understand how traffic safety on U.S. roads has changed since the onset of the pandemic by comparing the number and characteristics of traffic fatalities during this period to what would have been expected if the pandemic had not occurred and pre-pandemic trends continued.

Read the full article here.