Crashes are down in Allegheny County. So why are roadway deaths at an all-time high?

Since the heyday of American car culture in the mid-20th century, fatalities per million miles have generally declined thanks to safety improvements like seatbelts and airbags.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration puts it simply: “Newer cars are safer cars.” But several alarming trends across the country, including in Allegheny County, suggest that it’s not so simple.

From 2016 to 2022, PennDOT reported a 22% increase in major injuries per accident in Allegheny County, and a 31% rise in fatalities during that same time period. Worse yet, it appears that the pandemic has accelerated these declines in safety. In 2021, major injuries hit their peak under criteria introduced in 2016. Last year, 84 people died in crashes, the most in 17 years.

Vehicular collisions are becoming less numerous in the county, but noticeably more likely to cause death or severe injury, even as innovative features like lane assist, back-up cameras and blind-spot indicators have become standard. This apparently paradoxical trend indicates that there’s more to car safety than what the federal safety ratings system has to say.

Pandemic-era behavioral changes, reductions in traffic enforcement, ever-larger vehicles and distracted driving could all be to blame. Experts say it’s likely a combination of these factors, giving policymakers and regulators a tight knot to untangle as they try to right the course of traffic safety in the county.

How We Drive

As streets thinned out at the onset of the pandemic, drivers who did go out were more likely to speed, run red lights and engage in other reckless behaviors, according to survey data from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Traffic volume mostly returned to normal after 2020, but data suggests that driving habits did not. Major injuries from running red lights, aggressive driving and impaired driving have all hit historic highs between 2021 and 2022.

COVID-19 isn’t entirely to blame for an uptick in unsafe driving, though. Compared to 2014, last year saw 30% more collisions involving distracted drivers. Some experts blame cell phone use and flashy car dashboard touchscreens.

In many ways, distracted driving has surpassed drunk driving as a leading concern for transportation safety officials. In 2004, PennDOT reported 28 more distracted driving accidents than drunk driving accidents in Allegheny County. Last year, that gap grew to 633 accidents.

Police have traditionally been tasked with deterring unnecessary risk-taking on the road through traffic stops. Between staffing issues, pandemic-era cutbacks to limit officers’ interactions with the public and reforms meant to limit racial discrimination in traffic enforcement, that’s changed.

For instance, Pittsburgh City Council passed legislation in 2021 to ban officers from pulling over motorists for minor infractions, such as burnt out headlights or recently expired inspection stickers.

The police department announced its intention to resume these traffic stops in 2023, but cities such as Philadelphia and Seattle have gotten the changes to stick, motivated in part by the fact that traffic stops themselves can result in death for motorists.

This reduction in enforcement may have come with a cost, allowing drivers to “think we can get away with it,” Jonathan Adkins, CEO of the Governors Highway Safety Association, told NPR.

“There's not enforcement out there, [police are] hesitant to write tickets. And we're seeing the results of that,” Adkins said.

There’s no definite link between traffic enforcement and Allegheny County’s increasingly dangerous roadways, but high-visibility, safety-focused enforcement efforts are generally shown to reduce risky driving.

What We Drive

To further complicate the issue, experts suggest that driver behavior may not be the sole culprit for the uptick in severe crashes. In addition to how drivers act behind the wheel, the kinds of cars consumers buy can have its own impact on road safety.

“It's hard not to put a big blame on the fact that cars are getting bigger and bigger” says Eric Boerer, Advocacy Director for BikePGH. “The size of vehicles is a major contributing factor”.

As families traded in their sedans for trucks and compact cars for SUVs, the average weight of American cars subsequently shot up by more than 175 pounds in just three years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. New, heavy cars “have seen a lot of changes even over the last five years in terms of safety features,” Boerer elaborated, but “we’re not seeing improvements to protect those people outside of vehicles.”

Increased car weights mean collisions with pedestrians, bikers and smaller vehicles are more violent at lower speeds than they historically have been. As such, even collisions at legal speeds are more likely to be fatal for these vulnerable groups.

Larger cars also mean larger blind spots, leaving young children vulnerable, even when drivers travel at responsible speeds.

In a similar vein, vehicle noise suppression is also an emerging consideration for increases in fatal crashes, as modern cars with advanced mufflers or silent, electric engines could be making it harder for pedestrians to hear automobiles at intersections. In particular, electric cars are 40% more likely than gas-fueled cars to hit pedestrians, according to a study by the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

What can be done?

Reducing major injuries and deaths from traffic crashes is a complex challenge, requiring action from government and drivers alike.

In recent years, policymakers and regulators have made some progress. Under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Department of Transportation has or must soon make a variety of adjustments to safety standards. For example, a new car assessment program will focus on “vulnerable road user[s]” to mitigate pedestrian injuries “to the best extent possible.” It also gives Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg until November 2024 to prescribe a federal standard on impaired driving prevention technology in passenger motor vehicles.

In Pennsylvania, lawmakers have reported improvements in traffic safety since piloting automated speed cameras for work zones and school buses. The commonwealth also plans to spend millions on crosswalk timers, which research suggests can slightly reduce the number of crashes at a given intersection.

For local governments, the best path forward may be creating “self-enforcing” streets, or roads that naturally impose safer speeds due to their narrow or winding shape, or through man-made design elements, like speed bumps. Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program is one example of this philosophy in action. The program targets specific streets or intersections for low-cost physical safety improvements, such as shallow speed humps or traffic circles.

“All these deaths are preventable”, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said at his 2023 State of the City address in November, committing to a “vision of zero traffic-related fatalities.”

“We’re shifting resources to support additional speed bumps, lane reductions, two way-conversions, and other measures to make our streets safe for vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians,” Gainey said.

Ultimately, a combination of personal responsibility from drivers and change from all levels of government will likely be needed to achieve this goal and make our communities’ streets safer, according to Boerer.

“Approaching this problem is complicated,” Boerer said. “There’s no one silver bullet.”