NC DOT has published its analysis of data regarding vehicle crashes during the spread of COVID-19 throughout our state. The results may surprise you. In the weeks following the Governor’s declaration of a state of emergency, roadways in the Triangle, where I live, were nearly empty. I imagine the situation was similar in other parts of the state. It is, therefore, not surprising that the number of traffic crashes in March and April dropped precipitously from the previous year and from the five-year average. In the first week of April, for example, there were about 3,000 crashes, down from nearly 7,000 the same week in 2019. While the number of traffic crashes has continued to trend lower than normal throughout the spring and summer, it returned to the five-year average the second week of June. These numbers are not particularly surprising. One would have expected traffic crashes to decrease following the declaration of a state of emergency, to remain depressed during the ensuing statewide stay-at-home order, and to thereafter increase as restrictions were lifted. What surprised me were the numbers of fatal crashes. Not only did they not precipitously decline, they actually surpassed 2019 numbers and the five-year average during several weeks this spring and summer. The sample size is much smaller, which leads to greater week-to-week fluctuation, but the trend line for fatal crashes did not exhibit the same downward trend as the overall crash rate. What explains the divergence in these trends? I don’t know. Perhaps the circumstances that [...]
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