Analysis of Covid restrictions influence on road traffic crashes and related road users behaviour in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The Covid pandemic and following restrictions worldwide influence various aspects -lockdown does not only have economic consequences but is also associated with a change in population mobility. As well as the spread of a pandemic and the associated numbers of infections and deaths, policy responses and restrictions have also varied from country to country. Despite all the negative impacts of the Covid pandemic, the decrease in crash-related injuries may be seen as one of the positive impacts of lockdown politics. The change in crash characteristics dur-ing the Covid lockdown may provide new insights and help design countermeasures for road safety improvement. It is not sufficient to generalize findings across individual countries, there were different trends in crash frequency and severity during the Covid lockdown The main purpose of this study was to investigate the Covid restriction's impact on road safety in the Czech Republic. The retrospective analysis was performed using data the Police crash statistics. In addition to data from the main Covid periods (2020 and 5 months of 2021 data), crash data from 2016-2019 as the period unaffected by the Covid pandemic, were used as a control group. The study focused not only on the overall crash frequency but also on the analysis of the crash frequency according to the individual crash participants. Crash data did not indicate significant changes in risky behaviour. The mobility decrease was associated with decreased crash frequency, especially of vehicles and pedestrians. The crash numbers also reflect changes in how people spend time, respectively an increase in leisure time activities in some age groups and a change in usage of transport modes. Two-wheeled vehicle users (cyclists, motorcyclists) crash frequency was more influenced by seasonality. While the crash frequency of vehicles (personal vehicles and HGVs) and pedestrians was better correlated with mobility data, the cyclists and motorcyclists crash frequency were better correlated with temperature.