The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.

… The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak.

  • justJanne@startrek.website
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    11 months ago

    Is it so hard to believe that in an era where more and more people are distrusting authority and breaking rules, especially considering how the right wing Americans have reacted to COVID measures, that they’d also start disobeying traffic rules?

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Couple this with cell phones, smart watches and infotainment systems fighting for our attention, even while on the road.

    • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Not being vaccinated against covid-19 is the second best predictor that you will be in an accident, first being that you’re an alcoholic and they’re only twice as likely to get in car wrecks as unvaccinated against covid people. It seems like there is indeed a strong correlation between not wanting to get vaccinated to own the libs and driving like an absolute jackass