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>And this, in a nutshell, is the reason why the traffic accidents and deaths statistics didn't really improve during the pandemic, despite reduced traffic. Thi
by throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>And this, in a nutshell, is the reason why the traffic accidents and deaths statistics didn't really improve during the pandemic, despite reduced traffic.
This is like a batting practice pitch straight over home plate for the biases of HN.
I propose a different theory: All the older and statistically safer white collar workers were at home leaving the younger, poorer, "monster energy is my sleep" essential workers crowd on the roads.
- ballenf 5y agoOr to line it up more squarely with the point of staying home: those who make decisions in large part based on risk assessment stayed home (due to covid). That left risk takers on the road with no "safe driver" buffers between them.
- mtoner23 5y agoIdk, in your theory if people dont change their behavior and you remove the safer drivers, then maybe accidents per driver are up but overall accidents should be down. But no, overall accidents went up which shows people changed their behavior. Correlate that with overall levels of "disfuction" in society like more airline passanger problems, more grocery store customer incidents i think the other theory makes more sense.