Pedestrian Deaths Hit a 4-Decade High

Whether someone lives or dies after being hit by a car comes down to two factors: the driver's speed and how tall and blunt the vehicle's front end is. These factors have pushed U.S. pedestrian deaths to a four-decade high.

MoneyGeek analyzed 2023 crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and pedestrian fatality trends from 2009 to 2023. Pedestrian deaths increased about 85% from 2009 to 2022, rising from 4,109 to 7,605 fatalities. Deaths dipped slightly to 7,380 in 2023, but pedestrians now represent a record 18% of all U.S. traffic deaths.

Between 2009 and 2022, pedestrian deaths rose from 4,109 to 7,605, an increase of about 85%. Deaths declined slightly to 7,380 in 2023, but pedestrians are still dying at rates not seen in more than 40 years.

"We still have a major pedestrian safety crisis," Russ Martin, senior director of policy at the Governors Highway Safety Association, told NPR in early 2024.

Dr. Scott Zenoni, a trauma surgeon at Health First's Holmes Regional Medical Center in Florida, sees the consequences. "A lot of the pedestrian-versus-auto injuries we see aren't fatal," he said. "But these patients have devastating traumatic brain injuries, musculoskeletal injuries that leave them debilitated for life. We're spending billions of dollars annually to treat these patients once they make it to rehab."

Vehicle occupant deaths declined faster than pedestrian deaths in 2023, so pedestrians now represent a larger share of traffic fatalities than at any time in modern history.

Many people assume pedestrian fatalities happen mainly on high-speed highways, but crash data shows otherwise.

MoneyGeek's analysis of 2023 crash data from NHTSA's Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) shows serious injuries occur at speeds common on residential streets, using modeled risk estimates based on pooled federal data.

A pedestrian hit at 25 mph has a one-in-three chance of serious injury or death. At 35 mph, the risk jumps to one in two. At 45 mph, nearly two out of three crashes kill or seriously injure the pedestrian.

At 25 mph, roughly two-thirds of pedestrians survive a crash. At 40 mph, survival drops to about four in 10, a 20 mph difference that flips the odds.

*Speed-injury risk estimates are based on national crash-risk modeling using pooled federal data rather than single-year CRSS records. Annual CRSS data don't include sufficient vehicle-speed detail to update these estimates year by year. Estimates at higher speeds rely on fewer crashes with reported travel speed, so these estimates represent modeled averages, not precise point estimates. Small increases in speed create large increases in harm.

A pedestrian hit by a car traveling 25 mph has nearly a one-in-three chance of serious injury or death. Yet Americans are hitting and killing pedestrians at near-record rates as other traffic deaths decline.

In 2023, overall traffic fatalities dropped by about 4%, but pedestrians accounted for roughly 18% of all roadway deaths, nearly one in five people killed. That's the highest proportion in modern records, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA).

Two factors explain the trend: vehicles travel too fast on roads shared with pedestrians, and modern vehicles have grown larger and heavier over 30 years. These factors turn survivable crashes into fatal ones.

Over the past three decades, the average passenger vehicle in the United States has become taller, wider and heavier. Extra size and weight offer more protection to occupants but are deadly for pedestrians and cyclists.

MoneyGeek's analysis of the shift from cars to trucks and SUVs shows how booming light-truck sales have reshaped crash risk and costs for everyone on the road.

Research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that vehicles with hood heights above 40 inches are about 45% more likely to cause pedestrian fatalities than vehicles with hood heights of 30 inches or less.

Among mid-height vehicles with 30- to 40-inch hoods, those with blunt front profiles were about 26% more likely to kill pedestrians than vehicles with sloped fronts.

"The vehicle is striking the pedestrian much higher in the torso region and pushes the pedestrian forward and down," IIHS President David Harkey told NPR. "So the result is you have a lot more severe injuries and, more often than not, a lot more head injuries."

The front ends of many full-size pickup trucks reach as high as about 55 inches, creating large blind zones that are dangerous for children and wheelchair users.

Angie Schmitt, author of Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America, argues that "poor and vulnerable people are paying a high price for this arms race among auto consumers."

Pedestrian crashes occur most frequently at intersections, where people on foot and vehicles cross paths.

Crashes away from crossings are more dangerous because vehicles travel faster and drivers may not expect pedestrians in the roadway on multi-lane urban arterials with few marked crosswalks.

Mid-block crashes and collisions on high-speed corridors increase the likelihood of fatal injury, showing the need for speed management throughout road networks, not just at marked crossings.

States in the Sun Belt consistently record higher pedestrian fatality rates than many northern states. Road design, climate and walking patterns explain the gap.

In warmer regions, people walk more throughout the year, often along wide, high-speed arterials with few safe crossings.

After more than a decade of increases, pedestrian deaths declined in 2023, but experts caution against declaring victory.

GHSA projects that U.S. drivers struck and killed about 7,318 pedestrians in 2023, a decrease from 2022 but still more than 14% higher than in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.

California led the decline with dozens fewer pedestrian deaths in the first half of 2023 compared to 2022, according to preliminary GHSA data. Arizona, Georgia and Virginia also saw double-digit drops, while Colorado, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee saw increases, showing how uneven progress has been across states.

"While we've made some modest progress, there's still quite a bit of work to be done," Martin said. "We're still way above pre-pandemic levels of pedestrian deaths."

Since the pandemic, more cities have adopted Vision Zero strategies, a road-safety approach that aims to eliminate traffic deaths by redesigning streets to slow vehicles and protect vulnerable users.

Common Vision Zero strategies include lowering speed limits in residential and commercial areas, narrowing vehicle lanes, adding protected bike lanes and wider sidewalks, and installing speed cameras and other traffic-calming measures.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has embraced a National Roadway Safety Strategy and is distributing billions in grants for safer infrastructure, including pedestrian-focused projects.

Martin said, "We're thinking about the larger system rather than trying to address symptoms."

The IIHS findings have put pressure on manufacturers to rethink vehicle design, front-end height and shape.

"We need automakers to pay attention to these kinds of results and start to think about what they can do with regards to designing their vehicles to protect the vulnerable road users in our system," Harkey said. "We need to think holistically about what we need to do to protect everybody on our roadways, not just those in the vehicle, but those outside the vehicle as well."

Infrastructure and vehicle design changes take time, but individual actions can reduce risk immediately.

Crashes leave survivors with permanent injuries and medical bills that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Having adequate liability car insurance provides financial protection if a driver injures a pedestrian or another road user.

State minimum requirements vary, but bare-minimum coverage often isn't enough to cover serious injury claims, property damage and legal fees after a severe crash.

Drivers should review their liability coverage limits and broader car insurance coverage options to make sure their policy can protect both their finances and vulnerable road users.

Comparing top car insurance companies can help drivers balance strong protection with an affordable premium instead of defaulting to the cheapest bare-bones policy.

Pedestrian safety in America stands at a crossroads. Deaths have begun to decline, but pedestrians now represent a record share of the nation's traffic fatalities.

The combination of excessive speeds, dangerous vehicle designs and roads built for cars rather than people has created a crisis that demands urgent action. Slower speeds save lives, better vehicle design reduces injuries and infrastructure that protects pedestrians works.

As cities test 20 mph zones, federal infrastructure dollars flow to safety projects and researchers continue documenting the human cost of the status quo, one question remains: Will policymakers move fast enough to make streets safe for people on foot?

MoneyGeek analyzed pedestrian crash data from NHTSA's Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) for calendar year 2023, the most recent year of detailed, nationally representative crash data available.

CRSS is a probability-based sample of police-reported motor-vehicle crashes in the United States. All estimates use CRSS survey weights to represent national crash totals.

We examined the relationship between vehicle travel speed and pedestrian injury outcomes by linking each pedestrian to the striking vehicle so that speed reflected the vehicle responsible for the injury.

Pedestrian injury severity was classified using CRSS injury codes. Serious injury refers to suspected serious injury (nonfatal). Fatalities were identified using reported fatal injury outcomes.

To estimate injury risk at specific speeds, MoneyGeek used weighted logistic-regression models with vehicle speed as a continuous predictor. This reduces instability from small sample sizes at higher speeds and accounts for missing speed data.

National fatality trends are based on GHSA analyses of NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data, with finalized estimates through 2023 and preliminary projections where noted.