We seek to identify new safety and health benefits of telecommuting and, as they are discovered, keep people informed. There are significant safety benefits to telecommuting. Approximately 40,000 people die in crashes every year in the US, many hundreds of thousands more are injured, and billions of dollars worth of property is damaged. There are many people commuting home from work suffering from fatigue, after they had to prepare for work, commute to work, and perform their work for many hours away from their homes.
Telecommuting reduces traffic and the resulting hazards that unnecessary traffic causes.
Also, if roads become less crowded, less roads will need to be built, and existing roads and bridges will last longer. Existing roads will become safer, too, as some of the inevitable savings can be spent on improved road maintenance and infrastructure upgrades. There are significant health benefits to telecommuting, as well. Conversely, by staying home, they are not becoming infected by communicable diseases from coworkers, who decide to bring them into the office. The commute, itself, is enough to cause stress-related illnesses for many people, and sometimes just the distance and time involved in commuting to and from work can cause unnecessary physical discomfort for some people.