Traffic deaths in N.J. plunge to 50-year low as coronavirus leaves roads empty - NJ.com

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If you are desperate for good news amid the coronavirus pandemic, here’s some: Traffic deaths in New Jersey for April fell to their lowest level in more than 50 years.

Last month, 26 people died in car accidents across the state, the fewest in that month since at least 1968, according to New Jersey State Police data.

That represents a drop of 35% compared with the 40 deaths on average from 2015 to 2019. It beat April’s former low point of 30 deaths, which occurred in 2015. (The worst Aprils in more than half a century were 1968 and 1970, when 114 died in an era before mandatory seatbelt use, let alone air bags and driver assistance technology.)

If you’ve been on the road lately, the decreased deaths are probably an unsurprising statistic. With most businesses shuttered and nonessential travel curbed, a lot fewer drivers are behind the wheel. And with fewer drivers comes fewer accidents.

“It’s not a far stretch to understand why traffic fatalities are low right now,” said state police Maj. Brian Polite. “Of course, we would like it to be this low all the time.”

March, which included more than two weeks before the state imposed driving restrictions, did not see the same kind of drop. Thirty-three people died in crashes, according to state police data, one fewer than 2019 and just three less than the average over 2015 to 2019.

Over the year, fatal crashes in 2020 are down 12 percent compared with the same time period last year. That continues national and state trends over the past three years, with preliminary data released Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing traffic deaths across the country dropped 1.2% in 2019.

Still, April’s decline is a tiny silver lining in an outbreak that has offered few: At least 8,549 people have died of coronavirus in the Garden State, business has been crippled and hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs.

Other states have also reported lower traffic fatalities during the pandemic, including California — where deaths fell by half, to about 200 a day, according to an April study by the University of California, Davis.

But not every state has seen that, amid reports that drivers are dangerously speeding more frequently given the lack of congestion. In Massachusetts, 28 people died in crashes in April, one more than in 2019, with state officials citing speed as a factor, according to the Boston Herald.

To combat the spread of coronavirus, New Jersey has limited public activity since mid-March. In announcing a raft of closures March 16, Murphy “strongly discouraged” nonessential travel at night. Five days later, he extended that with a stay-at-home order that covered all hours of the day.

“People are heeding that, and not traveling except for essential reasons,” said Tracy Noble, a spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. Still, she said, 27 deaths in April were 27 too many.

“It’s a noticeable change, but in the grand scheme of it, people are still dying of traffic fatalities and those crashes are all preventable,” Noble said.

Just how much has traffic fallen? That isn’t a statistic the state Department of Transportation keeps, but activity on the state’s toll roads offers a gauge.

Traffic was down 63% on the New Jersey Turnpike in April, and down 61% on the Garden State Parkway, according to Tom Feeney, a spokesman for New Jersey Turnpike Authority. In that time, each highway had one fatal accident, with a total of three deaths, he said.

The decline in traffic “is dramatic and very significant," Feeney said.

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Riley Yates may be reached at ryates@njadvancemedia.com.

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Traffic deaths in N.J. plunge to 50-year low as coronavirus leaves roads empty - NJ.com
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