05/16/2023
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Twin Cities metro roads have become far more dangerous since the pandemic began
A spike in traffic deaths between 2020 and 2022 erased a decade of steady declines.
By Tim Harlow Star Tribune MAY 15, 2023 — 3:19PM
Roads in the Twin Cities metro area became far more dangerous after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as motorists drove faster, eschewed seat belts and got behind the wheel while impaired by alcohol or drugs, according to newly released state data.
Crashes resulting in serious injury or death spiked between 2020 and 2022, effectively erasing a decade of steady declines. Traffic safety experts and advocates say they hope the two-year period was an anomaly as they work toward an ambitious goal of cutting Twin Cities traffic fatalities from 182 to 72 by 2025.
Traffic deaths statewide hit 488 in 2021 and 446 last year, after five straight years below 400. The goal is to cut that number to 225 by 2025.
“We have more work to do,” said state traffic engineer Mark Wagner, who compiled crash data presented at last week’s Toward Zero Deaths conference in Brooklyn Center. “If it was a random spike, that would be great news.”
What else could possibly have happened in the Twin Cities on May 25, 2020 other than yet another day of COVID? I vaguely recall some event being mentioned in all the newspapers at the time, but Joe Biden never ever talks about it, so I guess it never happened.
Granted, I’m getting bored with pointing out that two — count ’em, two! — disastrous events happened in 2020 that were extremely well publicized at the time — COVID and George Floyd — but I seem to be the only pundit who can remember both COVID and George Floyd.
So I’m going to continue being one of these crazy extremists who points out that the 2010s were less horrible than the 2020s in terms of traffic fatalities and homicides. That’s just the way I am: I don’t like human beings dying in car wrecks or shootings. I’m just one of those maniacs who doesn’t like violent deaths.
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