Road Safety Annual Report 2021: The Impact of Covid-19

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Road Safety Annual Report 2021: The Impact of Covid-19

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ITF Road Safety Annual Report 2021
  • The ITF Road Safety Annual Report 2021 examines the development of road safety in the year 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. It assesses how the pandemic has affected mobility patterns and impacted the number of road fatalities. The analysis draws on data on road deaths from 34 member countries of the IRTAD Group. These are complemented by the more detailed crash and mobility data gathered via a survey of 24 countries, mobility data from Apple Inc. and data from the Oxford Covid-19 Governmental Response Tracker.
Excerpts From the Report Discussion:
  • The Coronavirus pandemic has caused abrupt and unprecedented changes in their everyday lives for citizens worldwide. The restrictions imposed by governments to prevent the spread of Covid-19 completely overturned known mobility patterns. Governments requested that people stay at home and commute only when absolutely necessary. Schools and universities were closed, and general curfews were introduced
    The data analysed for this report found the number of road deaths in 2020 was only -8% lower than the average for 2017-19. Leaving the United States aside to account for the outsize statistical impact of its much larger population, road fatalities in IRTAD countries dropped -19.2% in 2020, which is still modest compared to initial expectations
    Overall, the reductions in the number of road deaths in 2020 expected as a result of the mobility restrictions imposed to combat the Covid-19 pandemic did not happen at the anticipated scale. After a short, steep drop early in early 2020, with about one-third fewer crash victims, the number of fatal crashes on the world’s roads at the end of 2020 was not even one-tenth below the average of the three pre-pandemic years
A few interesting charts from the full report (link above)
countries with steepest drop in road fatalities due to Covid.png
countries with steepest drop in road fatalities due to Covid.png (16.4 KiB) Viewed 4619 times
overall trend of roadway deaths with and wo US.png
overall trend of roadway deaths with and wo US.png (15.06 KiB) Viewed 4619 times