When COVID hit, people disappeared from the roads for quite a while, and so did the police for the most part. It was pretty much “cruise at your own leisure” around Chicagoland. That time has passed, but quite a few drivers have kept the bad habits they developed on the road during that time. So, even though I cruise 294 at about 80+ MPH during the early morning trip to work, it has been up to now quite common to see cars blow by me at 100 MPH or maybe even more. Over the last 2 months, police presence on the roads has dramatically increased, and that covers metro, county, and state police. Now what I’m wondering is whether that is peculiar to greater Chicagoland which is fairly lawless to begin with, or have others of you noticed the same kind of increase enforcement on the roads where you live and work?
Here in Canada, we’ve definitely noticed a surge in both bad drivers and aggressive drivers. The police put out some stats a few months back detailing a significant increase in serious car crashes.
And I was on a long road trip weekend before last, and saw way more cops on the highway compared to previous years, and they were definitely pulling people over. Saw a few myself.
North Little Rock and LR AR here. I’ve seen no traffic stops since covid times. People do seem to be driving ten miles or so over the speed limit since then.
Here in Miami there’s not much change due to COVID. We drove insane before, during and after. During was nice since the lower traffic density made going fast much easier. Then again, Florida didn’t spend more than about 3 months thinking about COVID, much less worrying about it.
I see no evidence there’s been any recent uptick in enforcement hoping to put the Autobahn genie back into the Interstate bottle. At least not for the three counties I penetrate each time I drive to/from work. The state highway patrol doesn’t seem to have any press releases announcing any changes in their emphasis.
I nominate observer bias to account for most anecdotes about how drivers are worse than before Covid.
Of course, any time enforcement is noticeably more slack, some drivers will take advantage of that and misbehave more than usual. I have not myself noticed that effect in areas where I drive in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, however.
I drove less during the height of covid, so I can’t comment on those conditions (other than traffic was definitely lighter). But for the last year or so, I see the same number of police cars and traffic stops as before.
(Western Washington state)
I remember the first time I went on the highway toward Cleveland during covid (there was nowhere to go so I didn’t drive that way for a long time). I immediately noticed the amount of very high speed drivers whipping around.
Not sure about police presence. But I do know my local PD has had staffing issues straight through since 2020, with illnesses, retirements and lack of new applicants. I suspect staffing has got to be a problem for every department as it is with every industry.
Driving 100 mph up I-57, then I-80 in the morning was the “best” part of the pandemic!
(I used to make it from…where I live, to Harvey, Il, where I worked, in a silly stupid, short, previously unfathomable time. The tollway shutting down the booths added to the madness.)
And seriously, the rather secure knowledge that I simply wasn’t going to be pulled over by a cop.
What’s freeway enforcement like in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington?
I know, YMMV, but there is a big difference between “there are three highway patrol cars in the whole state” and “nobody has anything better to do with their time than sit on I-80 and pull over out of state plates.”
Upstate NY, we have had high speeds before COVID and did just fine. While over 100 was very rare and perhaps only on the thruway, traveling above 80 was pretty common at times on interstates and it was really free flow conditions. Since COVID we have had lots of (NY) city folks who come upstate and have made a mess of travel in several ways that causes traffic to move slower.
It’s not too soon. The insurance industry is definitely still feeling the pain of more costly auto accidents. I don’t have a handy cite, but i recently went to an actuarial meeting, and everyone was complaining about it.
(Part of the insurance industry’s pain is the high cost of replacing a car right now. But everyone is surprised that accidents haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. And auto deaths are still elevated. Although, hmm, FARS
doesn’t have anything more recent that 2020. Every insurance carrier does, though.)
I lived in Oakland, CA from 2008 up till March of this year. COVID definitely increased reckless driving and other activity, such as fireworks and sideshows. During the worst of it, people were just going stir crazy. You could sense the pent-up energy in the air. In June of 2020, protests and riots over George Floyd added to the mix as well.
Colorado central mountains here. Big tourist area. The first few weeks of COVID where great for driving.
Then people got sick of not getting out of the house and missing their vacations. Nobody was flying, and many had to cancel trips. It seems their solution was to take a drive to the mountains. Couple that with many people being able to work from anywhere now. So… many decided they would just rather work from a ‘quaint’ mountain town than the grind of a city. That affected our already sparse workforce/seasonal housing.
I donno about traffic enforcement, but at least from what I see, people are in a greater hurry than ever. At least on the roads. And many of these folks are not very good mountain drivers. Tailgating, passing on blind curves and such. Too fast for conditions is a real problem too.
Bad drivers have always been a problem of course, but seems worse now. I don’t know what their damn hurry is. I’ve been driving these mountains for over 30 years, I seen many cars crumpled up like so much aluminum foil off in a ditch or field. When they go off an edge, all you see are the cops, fire department and multiple tow trucks.
I used to enjoy the mountain driving I do. Can’t anymore.
I’m sorry that the beauty of your environment has been sullied in such a way, but “sullying environments” seems to be a human specialty. I can relate because I was brought up in the Berkshire Hills of western MA and, though not as majestic as in Colorado, we had the winding roads threading their way through the hills. An aunt and uncle visited us from Long Island, and my parents made the mistake of taking them up Mount Greylock. They were terrified the entire way! LOL