Wisconsin Public Radio, 2/25/21022
Andrea Bill, assistant director of the Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which analyzes state traffic data, said people in all regions of the state are speeding more.
Researchers first tracked an increase in speeding when the pandemic shutdowns in early 2020 caused dramatic reductions in the number of cars on the road. By mid-2021, Bill said, volume in Wisconsin was nearly back to pre-pandemic levels — but average speeds hadn't come down.
"What I thought would happen was that when the traffic came back to normal, we would see the speeds go back down to where they were before 2020," Bill said. "And we did not see that in 2021."
The state ended 2021 with 601 traffic deaths. That’s tied with the total in 2012, which at the time was an outlier. Not since 2007, when 737 people died, has Wisconsin seen a deadlier year on the roads. In the decade that preceded the pandemic (from 2010 through 2019), the state averaged 537 traffic deaths per year.
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