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Smashed windshield
One of the perhaps more predictable side-effects of the pandemic was that the country’s newly emptied streets and roads would tempt drivers to speed and take other risks behind the wheel.
But with traffic volumes now returning to what they were before COVID-19, things are moving in a more unexpected and unfortunate direction. Rather than taper off, traffic crashes and fatalities have become only more common in Wisconsin.
By April 20 this year, 138 people had died in crashes on public roadways in Wisconsin, according to figures from the University of Wisconsin’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory. That was up from 113 by the same date in 2021. Milwaukee itself had recorded 14 fatal crashes by May 5.
“It turns out congestion actually had a role in traffic safety, because when there is congestion, you can’t go as fast,” said Mike Schwendau, program and policy chief at the Wisconsin state patrol’s bureau of transportation. “So with less traffic on the roads, we’d thought traffic fatalities would have gone down. And the opposite has happened.”
Andrea Bill, associate director of the Wisconsin Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said any attempt to understand these trends inevitably involves speculation into human psychology. Many observers blame a combination of the opportunities presented by lightly trafficked streets and the frustration that many people still feel over the pandemic and its resulting economic disruptions. Whatever the ultimate reasons, drivers clearly have not returned to doing whatever they had been doing to make roads safer before the pandemic. Much of it probably comes down to habit.
“One hypothesis is: Did people get used to driving so fast that it’s now the new normal?” Bill said.
Reversing the Trend
Before COVID-19’s arrival in March 2020, transportation officials had been able to point to a long string of years in which traffic crashes and deaths were generally becoming less frequent. Between 2010 and 2019, the average number of traffic deaths was down to 537 a year. That was well below the recent peak for a single year—the 737 deaths recorded in 2007 in Wisconsin. By 2021, the first full year of the pandemic, the number was back up to 601.
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Rather than spend lots of time trying to understand what’s motivating the risky behavior, transportation and safety officials are seeking to mitigate it. Before the pandemic, the decrease in traffic crashes and deaths had been accomplished not only through safe driving habits but also improved vehicle-safety features and road designs and stricter enforcement of speed limits and other laws.
The pandemic did little to slow down changes in safety technology and road construction. The police, however, often found themselves on the defense amid the backlash that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis officer.
“That hurt enforcement,” Schwendau said. “And then some people saw what the situation was and took advantage of it.”
Even with all that, the police still managed to write more tickets. In 2020, the Wisconsin State Patrol issued 1,403 citations, up from 583 in 2019. Rather than being unique to Wisconsin, these trends have developed throughout the U.S. New York City recently embarked on a new billboard campaign to remind drivers of the dangers of speeding and, in effect, scare them into slowing down. And U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced plans to send $5 billion to cities and other local governments to pay for safety improvements.
Safety through Education
Schwendau, Bill and others said the police most certainly will have a part to play in getting the fatality and crash numbers back under control. Their preference, though, is to see safe habits promoted through less heavy-handed means.
Schwendau said of the four “Es” of transportation safety—enforcement, emergency management, education and engineering—the greatest stress is now being placed on the last two. WisDOT’s education efforts in large part consist of a series of public-service campaigns like its “Click It or Ticket” initiative reminding people to buckle up.
More notable is the work being done to redesign streets and roads to make them less conducive to speeding and other risky behaviors. Schwendau said the federal transportation bill passed by Congress last year demands the “safe systems approach” to road construction. This generally calls for the installation of traffic-calming measures like speed humps, rumble strips and narrower lanes. Intersections are often redesigned as roundabouts or in so-called double-diamond configurations – which prevent vehicles from crossing traffic when turning left. And to protect other users of the road, bike lanes and pedestrian crossings can be installed and clearly marked.
“WisDOT wants to make our roadways a more forgiving system, so that when something does happen, you are more likely to survive, because people do make mistakes,” Schwendau said. “But when a crash does occur, we’re hoping these things will help prevent people from suffering serious injury.”
Humps, Bumps and Curbs
Milwaukee officials have been moving in this direction for years with the installation of separate bike lanes, speed humps, barriers and extended curbs used to narrow driving surfaces. In April, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson called for using $8.5 million collected in four city tax-increment finance districts to pay for improvements to North Van Buren, East Kilbourn, West Fond du Lac Avenue, West Congress Street, West Capitol Drive and other city streets. Brian DeNeve, spokesman for the Milwaukee Department of Public Works, said traffic-calming measures are separately planned for 16 other sites throughout the city. They include Oklahoma Avenue between Howell and Clement avenues, Locust Avenue between Sherman Avenue and 40th street and Appleton Avenue between 60th street and Burleigh Street.
Schwendau said he’s confident this work will bear fruit.
“But it’s not going to happen overnight,” he said. “The good news is that this is the first time in a couple of generations when there has been so much money put toward making infrastructure better and safer.”
Until more streets can be rebuilt with safety in mind, transportation officials will largely have to rely on the cooperation of the public, Bill said. History has shown that the right mixture of policies and enforcement can produce the desired results.
“We know that we can change that culture of speeding,” Bill said. “We have to remember it’s our family and our neighbors we’re talking about here. And we need to reverse this trend that’ going into its third year here.”
