When told to stay home, Houston hit the road...
and each other.

August 2020
Project Prompt
Create a series of visualizations that breakdown a complex issue.
My Approach
During the COVID stay-at-home order, it appeared that major accidents were on the rise in Houston. I turned to data to confirm this assumption.
Infographic outlining facts about the Houston metro area - 9,444 square miles large, 9 counties, 7 million people, 6,200 miles of roadway. In Harris County COVID stay at home started on March 31, 2020 ended May 20, 2020 and affected 34 cities and 5 million people.
Tools Used
  • Illustrator
  • Excel
Context

On March 31, 2020, Governor Abbott declared a stay-at-home order for the state of Texas in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a matter of hours, Houston, the 4th largest city in America, effectively shut down. Although Houstonians were told to stay home, many decided to take advantage of typically clogged roads finally being cleared. Accidents happen, and they seemed to be happening at a higher rate.

I began by pulling data from the Texas Department of Transportation's Crash Report Information System starting one week before the stay-at-home order was enacted to a week after the order was lifted. I used similar parameters to obtain data for 2019 so I could better track any concerning trends.

I based my colour palette on the Texas state flag and flowers and chose a font that was a more contemporary version of the font used in the famous "Don't Mess with Texas" graphic.

Pie charts comparing traffic accident primary causes. for both years, failure to control speed is the leading cause. Two charts comparing 2019 and 2020 accident effects. Overall traffic accidents are down in 2020, and non fatal, possible and serious injuries are down proportionally but fatalities appear to be the same between the years.
A zoom in of the fatal car crashes showing that although the overall number of people involved in accidents is down 60%, the number of fatalities is only down 16%.
Download the Full Piece

Want to work together?

If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
info@jes.fyi

LinkedinInstagram