What percent of work from homers actually avoid the highway of death? Sure there are some living an urban car free lifestyle working from home, but plenty chose the opposite for their remote work, choosing space and inconvenience from job centers which in America inevitably means car centric exurban or rural living. I'd wager you are more at risk driving 5 miles for groceries on one of those single lane per direction 50mph rural roads than you are commuting in rush hour traffic at 16mph.
I'd love to see some actual data, but I'd bet that a large majority of pandemic WFH moves were to midrange CoL suburb sorts of areas that have reasonable job prospects within reach, so should push come to shove and they need to find local butt-in-seat employment they can. Major hospitals, airports, etc being reasonable to access is a big draw too.
That's what I did. Groceries are a 10m drive away on a bad day. I've lived the rural life and it's not glamorous so I have no desire to return.
Of course some did make the move out to places like you're mentioning, but my suspicion is that this group is actually not that large and the big splash they made in media (traditional and social) made their numbers seem greater than they are.
I'm not so sure it is nonsense. Those rural 50mph roads are generally considered the most dangerous road type and many states prioritize turning them into actual divided roads due to prevalence of fatal accidents. Admittedly the rush hour traffic experience depends a lot on where you live; in the midwest you probably only see congestion on the exit itself and are otherwise going the full 60mph on even urban freeways, whereas in places like LA or NYC you aren't breaking a 16mph average no matter what road you are on during rush hour. Not a lot of ways to die going 16mph...
