But during the pandemic, something unexpected happened: total driving across the country dipped, but we saw a spike in crash deaths. Overall car fatalities increased by 7 percent in 2020 and another 11 percent in 2021, and pedestrian deaths similarly shot up.

The most widely accepted theory for why this happened is that in normal periods, routine traffic congestion slows cars down. But without road congestion during Covid, it suddenly became possible for drivers to go really fast and cause more fatal crashes — a shift that was enabled by the very design of roads in the US.

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The surprising reason why pedestrian deaths are down in the US

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Spoiler alert

> But during the pandemic, something unexpected happened: total driving across the country dipped, but we saw a spike in crash deaths. Overall car fatalities increased by 7 percent in 2020 and another 11 percent in 2021, and pedestrian deaths similarly shot up.
>
> The most widely accepted theory for why this happened is that in normal periods, routine traffic congestion slows cars down. But without road congestion during Covid, it suddenly became possible for drivers to go really fast and cause more fatal crashes — a shift that was enabled by the very design of roads in the US.