California Personal Injury Lawyers Blog
COVID-19 Stay at Home Orders Significantly Reduces California Car Accidents
With stay at home orders in place for the entire state of California due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, California residents are doing their best to remain in their houses and only leave when necessary. This has significantly reduced traffic throughout the state and particularly on the traditionally busy Southern California roads.
According to the Los Angeles Times, this decrease in driving has led to a decrease in vehicle collisions. A UC Davis survey was conducted to examine the impact of the stay at home orders on traffic. The survey showed that there were “about 15,000 fewer collisions per month and 6,000 fewer injury accidents.” The large decrease in traffic volume, “accounts for a roughly 50% decline in collisions on roadways policed by California Highway Patrol.”
The reduction in accidents is not only due to less traveling by car, but also because bars and restaurants are closed, there are “even fewer drunk driving accidents.” The study looked at California Highway Patrol incident reports from the 10 days prior to the stay at home order, and compared them with the 10 days after the order was issued. They found:
- The average daily number of collisions from the 10 days before the stay-at-home order was issued was 1,116. After the order, that number dropped to only around 500 per day.
- The average daily number of vehicle collisions involving fatalities or personal injuries in the 10 days before the order was 562. The average during the 10 days after the order was 274 per day.
These numbers are significant and are “an important reminder of how hazardous our normal lives have become.” So many car accidents occur everyday in Los Angeles and throughout California and far too often these accidents result in injuries or losses that are devastating to those involved. Seeing decreased accidents on our roadways is certainly a positive among the hard and uncertainty of these times.
We hope you are able to stay safe and healthy and stay at home as much as possible amid this global pandemic. However, at Walch Law we understand that you may still have to be on the roads to get supplies, health care, or provide essential services. If you or a loved one is injured in a Southern California car accident, we can still be contacted at any time to provide you assistance. When you suffer injuries due to the fault of another person, you deserve to be compensated–we can help you with the process to get that compensation.
Our Los Angeles car accident attorneys have years of experience handling personal injury claims that arise due to car and other vehicle accidents. We offer a FREE case consultation to go over the details of your case and answer your questions. While we are not conducting in person consultations at this time, we are still working remotely so give us a call at 866-465-8792 or shoot us a message and we’ll get started!