When Lancashire entered lockdown in March, emergency services across the county saw a 70 percent drop in the volume of traffic on the roads.

Latest figures from the fire service show that in direct correlation with this drop, the number of crashes they attended since the end of March also declined.

A spokesperson for the fire service said: "The number of road traffic collisions we attended as a service declined by 68.7 percent across the county.

"This was obviously directly linked to people staying home, but we’ve certainly seen an increase since lockdown began to ease."

New data released this week compared the number of road traffic collisions between March 24 and May 10 this year, to the number of incidents from the same period in 2019.

Lancashire Telegraph:

In East Lancashire in 2019, the fire service attended 20 incidents, yet in the same period this year they attended only two - a huge reduction of 90 percent.

In West Lancashire in 2019 crews were called to nine incidents, but two between March and May this year, a reduction of 77.8 percent.

Whereas in the northern part of the county, there were 13 incidents in 2019 decreasing by 69.2 percent to just four in 2020.

A total of 19 incidents were recorded in 2019 in the southern part of Lancashire but just six in the same time period this year, and in the Pennine region, firefighters saw a 60 percent decrease in crashes, recording 15 incidents from March to May 2019, compared with six in March to May this year.

The only place in the county to see an increase in road traffic collisions was central Lancashire.

Statistically the fire service attended five incidents in 2019 and six between March and May 2020 in this area, but three of the six were to make the scene safe and only one was where a casualty needed releasing from the vehicle.

The spokesperson added: "The figures show the extent of how lockdown has impacted road users driving style, and should be mulled over next time you get behind the wheel.

"Despite this, there has been an increase in the number of vehicles caught speeding on Lancashire's roads and the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership do a lot of work re: speed awareness and regularly post on their Facebook page about where they have seen incidents of speeding."