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> This resulted in a marked decrease in hospital admissions, traffic accidents and domestic crimes. That was the same worldwide because nobody was outside. Ho

> This resulted in a marked decrease in hospital admissions, traffic accidents and domestic crimes. That was the same worldwide because nobody was outside. Holy retcon, Batman!

bruce511 5y ago
Yes, so it's not the only cause, but the reductions in SA were like 65% compared to the UK at about 25%
- thrashh 5y ago
  But your article also says that SA has major issues with the regulation of alcohol consumption, issues that do not exist in a country like the US (according to the article).
bobthepanda 5y ago
Traffic accidents actually went up in the US. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-08/traffic-deaths-surged-during-covid-19-pandemic-heres-why https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-08/traffi... Generally speaking, emptier roads encourage more speeding and reckless driving, increasing the severity of car accidents.
- vmception 5y ago
  Guess we should have banned alcohol again.
- pja 5y ago
  That's down to US road design I suspect: Wide multi lane roads with clear sight lines encourage drivers to think it's safe to go very fast. If these roads are normally congested with traffic then you don't see this downside, but when traffic dropped during the pandemic & it became possible to drive far too fast on these roads that's exactly what happened, with the inevitable consequences.
- bsza 5y ago
  The US isn't the litmus test of everything though. In the EU, road deaths dropped sharply in 2020. https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/ https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/
  - llampx 5y ago
    The EU had wider scale lockdowns that lasted longer, IIRC.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    sure, but the claim was "worldwide" even in your link some EU countries reported increases.
- zxcvbn4038 5y ago
  The miles really melt away when your doing 160, love those open roads and wide curves in the southwest. Yeh Eisenhower! :) The biggest problem I run into is two lane highways where the semi trucks constantly block the left lane going just at the speed limit while trying to pass other semis in the right lane going just under the speed limit - literally a 1mph difference between the two. The speed limit for cars is 10mph above the truck limit but your lucky to do the truck limit consistently. California was particularly bad in that regard. People from Oaklahoma are also a constant scourge on the road, they can not tolerate someone going faster then them, so if you try to pass on the left they will pull in front of you and bumble along at the speed limit or one mile over (def a culture thing, cops in OK have a zero tolerance policy for speeding, no margin, regardless of conditions, passing, etc.). On an open road you can just pass them on the right but in any moderate traffic they cause a lot of problems. Check the plates the next time someone does that, pattern isn’t hard to see. Roads in West Virginia are basically paved over goat trails, I watched some douche in a pickup take a blind 5 mph turn at about 85mph trying to blow past a small sedan he obviously thought was going to slow and wedged himself in a stream about forty feet beyond the road. Luckily nobody was coming the other way around he turn or it could have been really tragic.
- llampx 5y ago
  I noticed a bigger increase in www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars submissions in the last year or so. People are really driving like idiots in traffic, let alone what they do on empty roads in the middle of nowhere. Looks to me like there's a general societal breakdown, also looking at the proliferation of videos of people walking out of stores with stuff they didn't pay for.

> This resulted in a marked decrease in hospital admissions, traffic accidents and domestic crimes. That was the same worldwide because nobody was outside. Holy retcon, Batman!

bruce511 5y ago

Yes, so it's not the only cause, but the reductions in SA were like 65% compared to the UK at about 25%

thrashh 5y ago
But your article also says that SA has major issues with the regulation of alcohol consumption, issues that do not exist in a country like the US (according to the article).

bobthepanda 5y ago

Traffic accidents actually went up in the US. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-08/traffic-deaths-surged-during-covid-19-pandemic-heres-why https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-08/traffi... Generally speaking, emptier roads encourage more speeding and reckless driving, increasing the severity of car accidents.

vmception 5y ago
Guess we should have banned alcohol again.
pja 5y ago
That's down to US road design I suspect: Wide multi lane roads with clear sight lines encourage drivers to think it's safe to go very fast. If these roads are normally congested with traffic then you don't see this downside, but when traffic dropped during the pandemic & it became possible to drive far too fast on these roads that's exactly what happened, with the inevitable consequences.
bsza 5y ago
The US isn't the litmus test of everything though. In the EU, road deaths dropped sharply in 2020. https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/ https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/
- llampx 5y ago
  The EU had wider scale lockdowns that lasted longer, IIRC.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  sure, but the claim was "worldwide" even in your link some EU countries reported increases.
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
The miles really melt away when your doing 160, love those open roads and wide curves in the southwest. Yeh Eisenhower! :) The biggest problem I run into is two lane highways where the semi trucks constantly block the left lane going just at the speed limit while trying to pass other semis in the right lane going just under the speed limit - literally a 1mph difference between the two. The speed limit for cars is 10mph above the truck limit but your lucky to do the truck limit consistently. California was particularly bad in that regard. People from Oaklahoma are also a constant scourge on the road, they can not tolerate someone going faster then them, so if you try to pass on the left they will pull in front of you and bumble along at the speed limit or one mile over (def a culture thing, cops in OK have a zero tolerance policy for speeding, no margin, regardless of conditions, passing, etc.). On an open road you can just pass them on the right but in any moderate traffic they cause a lot of problems. Check the plates the next time someone does that, pattern isn’t hard to see. Roads in West Virginia are basically paved over goat trails, I watched some douche in a pickup take a blind 5 mph turn at about 85mph trying to blow past a small sedan he obviously thought was going to slow and wedged himself in a stream about forty feet beyond the road. Luckily nobody was coming the other way around he turn or it could have been really tragic.
llampx 5y ago
I noticed a bigger increase in www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars submissions in the last year or so. People are really driving like idiots in traffic, let alone what they do on empty roads in the middle of nowhere. Looks to me like there's a general societal breakdown, also looking at the proliferation of videos of people walking out of stores with stuff they didn't pay for.