Yeah, the article really places the blame squarely on individual bad choices due to declining mental health from covid and other bad news things. I find it plai

Yeah, the article really places the blame squarely on individual bad choices due to declining mental health from covid and other bad news things. I find it plainly absurd that thousands of additional car wrecks are due to people feeling sad about America’s covid response and foreign policy. The only really plausible evidence for this is additional drunk driving due to mental health, but that doesn’t explain most wrecks. Maybe people just started driving the actual design speed of the road when they were empty during covid. Like the speed limit is 40 but people feel comfortable going. 60 because American roads are wide, straight, and unobstructed. Then a pedestrian steps out in front of them and their 3 ton pickup crushes them. The problem isn’t like internalized trauma, its the fact that American traffic engineers design for vehicle throughout and speed and nothing else.