COVID-19 can keep millions of Texans at home and cut vehicle travel roughly in half in many cities, but cannot keep hundreds from dying on state roads — continuing a stubborn trend of carnage unabated for nearly two decades.

With many reports likely still finding their way into the state’s crash recording system maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation, police last month logged at least 241 fatalities on state roads as of Monday. That is a decline of 21 percent from the 305 in March 2019, at a time when people are driving only about half as many miles.

“I would have expected the number to go down more,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. “But we tend to have a bad driving culture in our region and less traffic doesn’t mean safer drivers are out, sadly. We still see people taking unnecessary trips, and the fact we are still seeing high numbers (of fatalities) is worrisome.”

In Harris County, 32 people died on roadways last month, 14 more than killed by the new coronavirus, based on crash reports to the Texas Department of Transportation and health department statistics.

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As is typical, most deaths occurred in urban counties, according to the tallies to date. Dallas County, which reported 29 fatalities, surpassed its 2018 and 2019 totals for the month. Harris County’s 32 reported deaths was more than the 31 in March 2018, but below the 37 in the same month last year. The five deaths so far in Galveston County represent increases over March totals in 2018 and 2019.

Meanwhile some suburban counties, such as Montgomery County, are on track for reductions, with Montgomery County police agencies so far logging two fatalities in March, compared to nine last year. Fort Bend County’s total dropped from four deaths in the each of the previous two March periods, to a single fatality reported last month.

“People not dying is good,” said Robert Wunderlich, head of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute Center for Transportation Safety. “The problem is that there are others dying from the virus.”

Final fatality totals for many counties will not be known for a couple months. What is certain, after some early hope that traffic volumes would reduce the risk of crashes significantly, is Texas will not end its 19-year streak of having at least one roadway fatality every single day.

The streak, part of TxDOT’s campaign to encourage road safety, stretches back to Nov. 7, 2000. Since then, at least one person has lost their life on a state road every day. At least two people died every day last month.

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Among those deaths, pedestrians are becoming a larger share, with both Harris County and Bexar County surpassing 2018 and 2019 deaths for March. In Harris County, the 11 pedestrian deaths reported is four more than March 2019, something Gonzalez attributed potentially to bad habits along mostly desolate roads.

“Everybody that takes to the roadways thinks there is nobody out there and there are bicyclists and pedestrians,” he said.

Crashes overall, however, have declined for the Harris County sheriff’s department, internal department statistics show. The previous two Marches, the agency responded to 3,035 and 2,574 crashes. Last month, deputies handled 1,725.

Freed from stop-and-go traffic, Gonzalez said he worries speed — already a major problem along Houston area roads and a contributing factor to crashes — is worsening.

“Some of the habits do not break whether there is a pandemic or not,” the sheriff said.

Others may, however, according to early data.

Statewide, 41 of the 241 deaths were the result of alcohol-related crashes, a drop of 45 percent from the 74 last March.

Aside from the obvious importance of saving lives, safety experts said there is an incentive to avoid crashes for the next few weeks.

“If we can reduce demand on health services that’s a really, really good thing, because it frees up capacity to treat the virus and the other illnesses that continue, and because you don’t have to choose between saving a traffic crash victim and a virus victim,” Wunderlich said.

Serious injuries also decreased because of the drop in traffic volume, falling statewide to 1,090 for March from 1,415 the previous year, as of Monday.

“That bed we’re not using, that could be used for that person infected,” Gonzalez said.

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Researchers and advocates are looking closely at the traffic and crash trends, particularly at how less traffic affects the number of crashes and specifics about impaired driving, intersection safety and speeding.

“We know that traffic deaths are directly correlated with the amount that people in Texas are forced to travel by car and truck, but our economy is not necessarily directly correlated with traffic deaths,” said Jay Crossley, an Austin-based safety advocate and director of the nonprofit Farm & City, who argues for more neighborhood development to encourage people to live closer to offices and worksites.

Though the recent lack of steep declines in fatalities bucks the assumption, he and others argue if Texans drive shorter distances, they lower their exposure to the risk of being killed in a crash.

“We can rebuild our economy to not rely upon an assumption of 10 Texans dying every day in traffic,” Crossley said.

dug.begley@chron.com