You got down voted to hell, and I see why, but I want to address the second part of your statement because I find it more interesting. I saw a stat a while back that the average American gets in a car accident once every 8 years. My city was ~9/10 years and a city near me was every 12. Pretty good. Then covid hit and everyone now drives like they spent six months straight playing GTA (some of them did). Accidents are up, racing happens every night in every neighborhood, and people are aggressive and careless in their driving at the same time people are turning left from the inside lane across the other turn lane into the lane against the far curb. Did this decent into idiocy also happen where you live?
I do think people gave them a great scapegoat to advance their surveillance capacities.