A brand new report launched this week discovered Massachusetts noticed a 24% enhance in site visitors fatalities between 2019 and 2021, a “dramatic” quantity that outpaces the nationwide development throughout that point.
Compiled by TRIP, a Washington, D.C.-based nationwide transportation analysis nonprofit, the report reveals that site visitors deaths started to extend dramatically within the U.S. in 2020, even with fewer automobiles on the street resulting from COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
Fatalities continued to extend in 2021, as car journey returned to close pre-pandemic ranges. From 2019 to 2021, the U.S. noticed a 19% enhance in site visitors deaths, in line with the report, which attributes the numerous surge because the onset of the pandemic to “increased risks being taken by drivers.”
“In an October 2021 report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that ‘after the declaration of the public health emergency in March 2020, driving patterns and behaviors in the United States changed dramatically,’” the TRIP report mentioned.
“Of the drivers who remained on the roads, some engaged in riskier behavior, including speeding, failure to wear seat belts, and driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.”
An AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey of drivers within the fall of 2020 discovered related outcomes.
“It is possible that many of the individuals who were willing to travel — and even increase their travel — despite the health risks associated with the pandemic, were already more willing than average to take risks,” the AAAFTS survey report mentioned.
There had been 42,915 site visitors fatalities within the U.S. in 2021, in comparison with 36,096 and 38,824 in 2019 and 2020, respectively, the report mentioned.
Massachusetts accounted for 413 of these deaths in 2021, and 334 and 343 in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Only 15 states noticed a better enhance in site visitors deaths between 2019 and 2021, in line with the report.
Stacy Thompson, govt director of Cambridge-based LivableStreets, mentioned the report’s findings are disappointing, however “not terribly surprising.”
She mentioned there should be extra investments in strolling and bicycle infrastructure, and pointed to the necessity for pink mild or velocity cameras, which have been proven to scale back deadly crashes.
The pandemic was a “perfect storm” for fatalities, Thompson mentioned, as extra individuals had been strolling and biking outdoors to keep away from indoor dangers and fewer congestion on the roads offered extra alternatives for automobiles to hurry and kill somebody.
The report suggests a multipronged technique to scale back site visitors deaths, which focuses on safer individuals, roads, automobiles and speeds, and enhanced post-crash care.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention additionally launched information on site visitors fatalities Thursday, which confirmed that motorized vehicle crashes proceed to be a number one explanation for loss of life within the United States and resulted in a median of 36,791 deaths per 12 months, or 101 every day, from 2015 to 2019.
In 2019, the population-based motorized vehicle crash loss of life price within the U.S. — 11.1 per 100,000 inhabitants — was the very best amongst 29 high-income nations.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”