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Race, Class and Traffic Deaths


Vehicle crashes appear to be an equal opportunity public health problem. After all, Americans in every demographic. If anything, poor families tend to rely more on public transport and less on cars.

However, vehicle deaths turned out to be very unequal. Academic research shows that people with lower incomes are more likely to die in crashes. The racial gap is also huge — even larger on a percentage basis than the racial gap in cancer, according to the CDC.

The unequal numbers from collisions are particularly notable today because the United States is experiencing an alarming increase in the number of deaths caused by vehicles. Pete Buttigieg, Transport Secretary, recently called this “a national crisis in terms of deaths and serious injuries on our roads”. And that number is falling hardest for lower-income Americans and black Americans.

Experts say the reason for the increase remains a mystery. But the consequences are clear. More than 115 Americans have died on average every day this year.

Today’s newsletter will explore possible explanations for the rise, its inequality impact, and potential solutions.

Not too long ago, the car crash trend was a welcome story. Mortality rates began to decline in the early 1970s, thanks in large part to the consumer movement started by Ralph Nader. Cars become safer. States have passed seat belt laws. Drunk driving is becoming less common. The decline continued into the early 2010s, when airbags became standard and vehicles began to have technology to prevent collisions.

But the situation changed around 2015, with the mortality rate mostly increasing over the next few years. One reason seems to be distracted driving. By 2015, two-thirds of adults in the US owned a smartphone, up from 2006.

The US is also less aggressive in slowing down than the UK and some other parts of Europe, and traffic here tends to be larger. University of Iowa’s Gregory Shill called “American traffic stress” can kill pedestrians and occupants of smaller vehicles. These models help explain why mortality has decreased significantly more in other countries than in the United States in recent decades.

As alarming as these trends are, the biggest increases have occurred more recently – since the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, when Covid is changing everyday life, increase in car accidents. At the start of this year, the death rate was up about 20% from pre-pandemic levels. This is the strongest increase since the 1940s.

How did Covid lead to more incidents?

At first, researchers thought that more open roads might be the answer. Open roads can encourage speeding and speeding can be fatal. But even as traffic returned to near-normal levels last year, traffic deaths remained high. Robert Schneider, an urban planning expert at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says that combination undermines the empty street theory.

The remaining most plausible theories tend to be related to mental health problems caused by Covid’s isolation and disruption. Alcohol and drug abuse has increased. Impulsive behavior, like running a red light and not wearing a seat belt, also seems to have increased (like my colleague Simon Romero reported). Many Americans have felt frustrated or unhappy, and it seems to have affected their driving.

“They’re a little less prescriptive — they might not take the consequences into account,” says Kira Mauseth, a clinical psychologist at Seattle University, said. Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University, told The Los Angeles Times: “You’re locked in, locked up, and there are restrictions that you have to follow.”

Ken Kolosh, who oversees data analysis at the National Safety Council, a nonprofit group, told me it would take years for researchers to find all the causes. Confusingly, vehicle deaths have not increased in most other countries during the pandemic, suggesting that stress is a particularly American problem. “The world is really turned upside down,” says Kolosh.

One encouraging data point is consistent with this theory: The most recent data shows a slight drop in vehicle deaths this spring, as Covid restrictions continue to be drawn in.

However, the increase in collisions has become one more way the pandemic has hurt low-income Americans and people of color the most – as well. Covid’s early death wave and consequences of school closure.

As I mentioned above, vehicle deaths have long been unequal. Poorer people tend to drive older cars, which may lack safety features. Low-income neighborhoods are also more likely to have highways running through them. “We have systematically placed these lifelines in areas where people have less political power to resist,” said Rebecca Sanders, founder of Safe Streets Research & Consulting.

The pandemic has perhaps exacerbated the gap as many professionals have begun working from home, while many old-fashioned Americans still drive, bike or walk to work. Some lower-income workers also drive as part of their jobs.

Even if the full explanation for the increase in accidents is not clear, many experts believe that the most promising solutions are still clear.

“Making the streets safer does not require designing new solutions in the laboratory,” said John Rennie Short, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Written. Jeffrey Michael, another expert, told The Washington Post, “This is a problem for which the answer is known.”

Those answers include: stricter enforcement of speed limits, seat belt regulations and drunk driving laws; better designed roads, especially in poorer neighborhoods; more public transport; and further spread of safety features such as automatic braking.

Continuing to leave behind the Covid disruptions – and the loneliness and stress they’ve caused – seems to work for you, too.

Related: Buttigieg and the Department of Transport plan to use new funding from Congress to reduce vehicle deaths. Among the many projects: a pedestrian elevated street in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago; and new sidewalks, bike lanes and lighting near a public transit station in Prince George County, Md.

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