Crashes deadlier as drivers speed during lockdowns

LONDON: Coronavirus lockdowns led to huge reductions in traffic and fewer car crashes this spring, but as drivers sped up on quieter roads, the collisions became deadlier in several cities, a Reuters analysis shows. In New York City, the ratio of fatal crashes to all collisions rose 167% in April from a year ago. The increase was 292% in Chicago and 65% in Boston. Across the ocean, in Madrid, Spain, the rate of fatal collisions was 470% higher. Even as traffic plummeted across the United States, roads became more lethal, with a 37% increase in fatality rates per miles driven in April, compared to the same month last year, the National Safety Council said this week.

Last month, the group said in a statement that the lockdowns and reduced road congestion had created an “apparent open season on reckless driving.” In Britain, police documented instances of people driving at what they described as exceptionally high speeds of over 130 miles per hour. In the US state of Ohio, researchers found that while average speeds were up only slightly from March 28 to April 19 in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, the amount of extreme speeding increased dramatically. “The level of extreme speeding is really shocking,” said Harvey Miller, professor of geography and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at The Ohio State University. “What we’re seeing here - the fact that there’s less traffic and more speeding - I think that’s evidence that traffic is a great controller of speed.” Similar increases in speeding have been reported in Australia, Belgium and Denmark, according to reports compiled by the European Transport Safety Council.

The road death toll, to be sure, has fallen as traffic ebbed in many places. In New York City, collisions plummeted in April to 4,103 from 16,808 a year ago, a 76% drop. During the same period fatal collisions decreased from 20 to 13, a smaller 35% decrease. But the number of fatal collisions per 1,000 crashes increased from 1.2 per 1,000 crashes to 3.2 per 1,000 crashes. —Reuters