Risk-Compensation Trends in Road Safety during COVID-19

Md Rakibul Islam, Mohamed Abdel-Aty, Zubayer Islam and Shile Zhang
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Md Rakibul Islam: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
Mohamed Abdel-Aty: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
Zubayer Islam: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
Shile Zhang: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact, disrupting the normal trends of our everyday life. More specifically, the effects of COVID-19 on road safety are still largely unexplored. Hence, this study aims to investigate the change in road safety trends due to COVID-19 using real-time traffic parameters. Results from the extensive analyses of the 2017 to 2020 data of Interstate-4 show that traffic volume decreased by 13.6% in 2020 compared to the average of 2017–2019’s volume, whereas there is a decreasing number of crashes at the higher volume. Average speed increased by 11.3% during the COVID-19 period; however, the increase in average speed during the COVID-19 period has an insignificant relationship with crash severities. Fatal crashes increased, while total crashes decreased, during the COVID-19 period; severe crashes decreased with the total crashes. Alcohol-related crashes decreased by 22% from 2019 to 2020. Thus, the road-safety trend due to the impact of COVID-19 has evidently changed and presents a unique trend. The findings of the study suggest a larger need for a more in-depth study to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on road safety, to minimize fatalities on roads through appropriate policy measures.

Keywords: road-safety trend; COVID-19; fatalities; fatal and severe crashes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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