Traffic may have been down, but, anecdotally, the pandemic also put a bunch of people on the road who normally wouldn't have been driving themselves, no? Inexp

Traffic may have been down, but, anecdotally, the pandemic also put a bunch of people on the road who normally wouldn't have been driving themselves, no? Inexperienced drivers are stupidly dangerous. In addition to the "congestion" hypothesis, I would also posit that the lack of traffic deprived people of a lot of cues. Most driving in cities is "station keeping"--maintain your position relative to the cars around you and you can pretty much ignore everything else. If you're one of the few cars on the road, you are responsible for maintaining your speed, maintaining your lane, slowing down ahead of curves, etc. in response to all the environmental cues. And, as the self-driving folks have found out, "station keeping" is WAY easier than controlling your position relative to environmental cues. My anecdata on this is because of my eyesight going bad (getting old sucks--I recommend against it). I live on a street that I regard as a "target rich environment" (lots of pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles with a nice mix of Uber/Lyft drivers who are fscking road hazards)--and driving on that street was what drove me to start wearing glasses all the time. I simply cannot miss somebody because my vision is subpar and my brain edits them out, or I will kill them.