Chaos in the streets: COVID-19 has made many people worse drivers
I thought I was imagining things. I convinced myself that spending so much time indoors had addled my brain. Or at least my sense of speed and distance. But no, unfortunately no.
COVID-19 has made many of us worse drivers. Frankly, I don’t understand how that’s even possible. Pre-pandemic driving was challenging enough already.
For months now, I had noticed more NASCAR wannabes on the road; drivers taking curves and roundabouts as if auditioning for the role of a stunt double in a Bruce Willis movie. However, I dismissed these observations as random incidents, the kind of isolated occurrences that can lead to a faulty conclusion. One event does not a trend make, after all.
In December, for instance, I was out on my early morning walk when I was forced to come to a screeching halt at a crosswalk. A white coupe was barreling down the twolane street with no apparent intent of slowing at the YIELD sign. The car was going so fast and the young man appeared to have such little control that when he took the curve around the traffic circle, the vehicle climbed the curb, screeched across the pavement, and then thudded a few yards down the street.
I stood at the corner for what felt like an eternity, paralyzed by shock and anger and, more than anything, a sense of relief and gratitude. Thank goodness I had been paying attention.
Back home I recounted my brush with the crazy driver but then forgot about it. There were words to write, bathrooms to clean, calls to make, facemasks to sanitize and grief to tend. And anyway, living in a city guarantees all kinds of strange occurrences, on foot and behind the wheel.
Then it happened again — not the same white car at the same roundabout — but a similar close encounter. I unexpectedly met a red car going the wrong way on a tree-lined residential street as it tried to get around another vehicle. It forced me to veer onto the swale to avoid hitting it. Afterward I drove home shaking like a palm frond at the beach.
Eventually I shared these stories with friends, who admitted they, too, had noted the reckless driving. One talked about being “left in the dust” by a small SUV racing down the expressway at what she calculated was more than 100 miles per hour. Another described a motorcycle weaving through traffic, darting so close to cars that she thought she was watching a video game. Or maybe more like wa secret death wish.
Even then we chalked our reactions to being “older” drivers in a fastpaced, youth-oriented city. But now a just released report confirms our worst suspicions. Yes, pandemic lockdowns and work-from-home routines kept drivers off U.S. roads, but no, that didn’t translate into safer byways.
Some 42,060 people were killed in vehicle crashes in 2020, an 8% increase over 2019, according to the National Safety Council. It was the first jump in four years and the most since 2007 — a surprising climb considering Americans drove 13% fewer miles. Another report, this one from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that drug use — namely alcohol, cannabis and opioids — rose as a factor in fatal crashes.
I’m flummoxed. This defies logic. It flouts what I’ve longed believed to be one of the pandemic’s valuable lessons: Life is precious and unpredictable, so we’d do well to be careful, to hedge our risks, to live without tempting fate unnecessarily.
Just as the future appears more hopeful with the rollout of vaccines, I find myself disturbed by the grim numbers in those safety reports. Maybe we haven’t learned anything from the collective calamity of COVID-19. Maybe we don’t care enough about ourselves — or others — to follow safety rules. Maybe we think we’re invincible.
If any of that proves true, the pain of 2020 has gone to waste. What a pity that would be.
Ana Veciana-Suarez writes about family and social issues. Email her at avecianasuarez@gmail .com or visit her website anavecianasuarez.com. Follow @AnaVeciana.
All the puzzles on this page were prepared for publication on Saturday and ran in our digital edition. They are repeated here as a courtesy for print readers. bigger issue here is the wedge this will drive between us and my mom if we turn down this huge favor she is kindly offering. What do you think? -- Dogs vs. Mom vs. Wife
Dogs vs. Mom vs. Wife: Thank her profusely for her offer, then say you decided it's just too big a favor to ask of anyone.
Because even though she offered, it is a huge ask. It's totally credible to treat this as letting her off the hook vs. firing her for cause.
As for boarding the dogs, do some more asking around, no? No facility has a monopoly on peace of mind.
Carolyn: I will see if I can hunt up a more reasonably priced option, but my wife is insistent that the place MUST have a webcam. Oh well, happy wife, happy life -- right? -Dog Guy again
Dog Guy again: Um. Not a fan of the concept, no -- I mean the wife/life thing, not the webcam, but I actually don't think much of those, either, because they're just tethers to Here when you are going out of your way to experience the thereness of There.
They're not my dogs, marriage, trip or bank balance, but strong references are the nonnegotiable, to my mind, not the surveillance.
Readers say:
Look up training companies in your area -- oftentimes they offer board
Aing/sitting options, with a trainer being the one who takes on the pup! It's not perfect, but it may lead to a middle ground. P.S. Would you leave your human children with a woman who defiled pictures of them?
Any "wedge" here is your mother blaming you/ your wife/the dogs for your life decisions.
A