[galdosdi]

No. I mean yeah, but no. Those things matter, but THIS change was specifically caused by the pandemic. All over America, many drivers became SIGNIFICANTLY less conscientious, for reasons left to the imagination of the reader who is assumed to also have lived through the pandemic. It almost seems like a new cultural norm of less caring about the greater good and more selfishness on the road -- antisocial behavior, in other words.

Both anecdotally and statistically you see this all over the country, just since 2019 -- a very quick change over a very short time. So it seems strange to even think about any other cause, even if in general they are relevant -- those are just much slower acting things than the sudden impact of the pandemic.

We actually had road harms down or at least flattish until then.

[Tiktaalik]

The pandemic was hard on people world wide, probably harder on people outside of America. Only America is seeing this trend.

The pandemic and anti-social behaviour is not the cause. American people are not unique, but the built form of their cities and the type of cars they drive is. That is more likely the cause.

[addicted]

Some of the discourse in the U.S. is so weird. It simply pretends the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

The classic Onion headline “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” refers to gun violence specifically but it applies to so much more in the U.S.

I’m not really sure what causes Americans to behave this way.

[MBCook]

I don’t disagree. But there are lots of easy ways to cut traffic deaths besides trying to turn back behavior changes of the last few years.

Like making cars less deadly. Cutting down the number of trips. Thus my comment.