National Safety Council: Open roads led to dangerous driving

The council released figures for March, April and May — the worst of the pandemic restrictions keeping drivers off the roads — showing that despite lower traffic the death rate per million miles driven was up each month. In March, the death rate was 1.2 (1.07 in 2019), in April 1.45 (1.08) and in May 1.47 (1.19).

Those death rate numbers increased despite the number of miles driven being down substantially, including a high of 40% in April. Ms. Martin called the numbers “grim.”

“Unfortunately, the pandemic has actually exposed our national road safety culture for what it really is — deeply flawed and unfortunately in need of some immediate action,” Ms. Martin said. “We took cars off the roads, but we did not reap the safety benefits we should have experienced. Instead, for every mile driven our roads became deadlier even though they were much emptier.”

Panelists said they want to see a complete study of why the death rates are up, but they believe one factor is motorists feeling free to push the speed limit when there is little traffic on the road.