Our driving is getting worse. Traffic fatalities have been trending upwards over the past several years after falling for decades, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The most dramatic upticks occurred since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2019, before the pandemic began, one person was killed in a car crash every 15 minutes, for a total of 99 people a day. In 2020, the year Covid ramped up, someone died in a motor vehicle incident every 14 minutes, for a total of 106 people daily. In 2021, the frequency of death from vehicle crashes increased to one person every 12 minutes, or 118 a day. And that says nothing of the more than 7 million people who were injured in motor vehicle incidents during those three years.

The numbers continue to rise, with U.S. traffic fatalities up another 7 percent from the first quarter of 2021 to the first three months of 2022. Almost 43,000 people a year now die from car crashes, including thousands of pedestrians and bicyclists. If the trend keeps up, our driving over the next 10 years will kill more than the number of people who live in Minneapolis.

You’d think that with fewer people on the road during much of the pandemic, there would have been less opportunity for crashes. But it has been well documented that while the virus kept everyone cooped up, alcohol consumption increased significantly, and that could have contributed to making the roads less safe.

There’s also the possibility that as people felt frustrated while stuck at home and living with all kinds of restrictions about who they could see and how far they had to stand from them, they let loose behind the wheel in a way they ordinarily wouldn’t have as a kind of pressure relief valve. Less traffic on the roads may have contributed to an increase in risk-taking by making less careful driving seem safe.

Then, too, it’s possible that because people stayed home more, their driving skills became rusty, so they were not driving as well when they did venture out. Typically, I drive about 8,000 miles a year, but the first year of the pandemic, I put maybe 600 to 800 miles on my car. After the first several months of doing all my work from home and pretty much not leaving the house except for walks, whenever I would drive some distance, my confidence dipped—even though I had been driving for 60 years, since I was 16. Driving became less automatic.

Whatever the reasons for the increase in traffic fatalities, there’s much each of us can do to reduce risk. In fact, most car accidents are not accidents. They are crashes that occur because of avoidable mistakes that we make. To that end:

Don’t speed. Speeding-related deaths went up 17 percent from 2019 to 2020—from 9,592 fatalities to 11,258, according to the National Highway Safety Traffic Commission. The agency points out that speeding reduces your ability to steer safely around another vehicle, a hazardous object, or an unexpected curve. Speeding also increases the time it takes your vehicle to stop. More than half of all car trips are less than three miles. How much time are you going to save by speeding? Even on a 60-mile trip where the speed limit is 60 miles per hour, you’re not going to save even 10 minutes by driving at 70 mph.

Don’t drive after drinking. There was a 14 percent increase in deaths from drunk driving from 2019 to 2020. “Drunk” is probably less alcohol than you think. The blood alcohol level for drunk driving is 0.8, but even at 0.5, a driver will experience reduced coordination, reduced ability to track moving objects, and a reduced response to emergency driving situations.

Don’t look away (that includes texting). A study of 42 people found that looking away from the road for more than a single second—to reach for something such as a cup of coffee or food or perhaps to adjust the radio or look at something interesting out the side window—nearly doubled the risk for a crash or near-crash. If looking away involved a cell phone, the risk after more than two seconds was 5.5 times greater than it was for less than two seconds, and at least 10 times greater if the looking away lasted more than three seconds. Granted, the study was conducted on newly minted teenage drivers, but no matter what your age, not keeping your eyes on the road is not keeping your eyes on the road. Things happen fast.

Don’t speed, don’t drink, and don’t look away. It may sound simple, but it can help drivers save many thousands of lives each year (including possibly your own).