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Pedestrian Crashes in Perspective


The loss of 4,882 lives in pedestrian/motor vehicle crashes in 2001, almost thirteen people every day of the year, is an awful toll. Though the number of pedestrian fatalities each year is falling - down from 4,739 in the previous year and from 6,482 back in 1990, a drop of 27 percent in ten years - the percentage of people in the workforce walking to work has dropped more than 30% from 1990 to 2000, this according to US Census counts and estimates. The number of reported injuries involving pedestrians is also falling, from 84,000 in 1995 to 78,000 in 2001. However, we know from research into hospital records that only a fraction of pedestrian crashes that cause injury are ever recorded by the police.

The raw numbers hide all kinds of trends, truths, and lessons, and they beg a wide range of questions. Is walking dangerous? Is it more dangerous than other modes of travel? Is walking getting safer? Who is getting killed in pedestrian crashes, where, when, and why?

Is walking dangerous?
Obviously with 4,882 deaths last year, there are risks associated with walking. Pedestrian fatalities represent just over 11 percent of all traffic fatalities, and yet walking trips account for approximately 6 percent of all trips in the United States. However, walking remains a healthful, inherently safe activity for tens of millions of people every year - recent numbers from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reveal that three-quarters of US adults (152 million) walked, ran or jogged for more than 10 minutes within the past 30 days.

The public health community is now recognizing that lack of physical activity, and a decline in bicycling and walking in particular, is a major contributor to the more than 300,000 premature deaths caused by heart attacks and strokes - this number dwarfs the 40,000 annual deaths due to motor vehicle crashes and the relatively small 4,882 pedestrian deaths.

Is walking more dangerous than other modes of travel?
As mentioned above, pedestrians are over-represented in the crash data as they account for more than 11 percent of fatalities but only 6 percent of trips. However, there is no reliable source of exposure data to really answer this question: we don't know how many miles people walk each year, and we don't know how long it takes them to cover these miles (and thus how long they are exposed to motor vehicle traffic, for example).

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration uses a fatality rate per million population to state that 2.51 cyclists were killed per one million population in 2000 - the same figure for pedestrians would be 17.3 people per million and for motor vehicle fatalities the figure is closer to 127 people per million.

Is walking getting safer?
A drop of 27 percent in fatalities since 1990 certainly sounds good - but without knowing exactly how many people are walking, and how far they are walking, there's no way of knowing whether the drop in crashes is because fewer people are walking, or people are only walking on trails and not the roads, because they perceive conditions to be much less safe than ten years ago.

In 1994, the US Department of Transportation adopted a policy of doubling the percentage of trips made by bicycling and walking while simultaneously reducing by ten percent the number of bicyclists and pedestrians injured in traffic crashes. The goals are to be pursued together - one cannot or should not be achieved at the expense of the other goal.

Who is getting killed in pedestrian crashes?
A detailed breakdown of the age, gender, and location of pedestrian crash victims is available from the NHTSA and IIHS fact sheets listed under Crash Facts. Some of the more noteworthy trends or numbers are:
  1. More than two-thirds of all pedestrian crashes occur in urban areas, and in many urban areas pedestrian crashes account for between 30 and 40 percent of all traffic fatalities. Almost half of fatal crashes involving pedestrians occur between the hours of 6pm and midnight.

  2. Approximately forty percent of pedestrian fatalities occur in just four states: California, Florida, New York and Texas. While these are among the most populous states, the figure is still remarkably high - the same states account for 28 percent of all traffic fatalities.