Driving by means of cars, trucks or other vehicles in the United States is quite safe. However, people who do not have this alternative and resort to moving on foot are in considerable danger today.
Recently, the State Highway Safety Offices of the United States (SHSO) through the Association of Highway Safety Regulators (GHSA), published last June a study where it was determined that drivers in the country killed an average of 7,500 pedestrians last year. last year. This figure is the highest recorded since 1981. It should be noted that there is a lack of data from the state of Oklahoma, which could mean an increase in the final figure.
According to the researchers, these data are attributed to several causes, including increased deaths at faster driving speeds, consumer preferences shifting their vehicles toward heavier and taller trucks and SUVs, as well as a lack of pedestrian friendly road infrastructure. According to GHSA External Relations Director Pam Shadel Fischer, “Vehicles have evolved to be more protective of the people inside, but not to protect those outside.”
But the current situation faced by pedestrians in the United States was not always like this. According to one of the sources that the GHSA analyzed, which is the Fatal Accident Report Analysis System (FARS), the North American country successfully reduced the number of pedestrian fatalities caused by drivers for several decades. Pedestrian fatalities between 1980 and 2009 were cut in half, from 8,070 to 4,109. It is worth noting that the FARS data are available for more years than those of the SHSO. Despite this, the report treats them as a separate source due to the differences that exist in the way both entities classify deaths.
But data from 2010 has wiped out much of the progress made between 1980 and 2009. Pedestrian fatalities have increased 77% from 2010 to 2021.
Pedestrian deaths are highest in the southern states, which have warmer weather, where people are more likely to be outside and potentially choose to walk or run as alternatives to getting from one place to another. The global rate of pedestrian deaths per 100,000 inhabitants was 2.28 in 2022. It should be noted that pedestrians died more frequently per capita in most of the states that are in the so-called Strip of the Sun, with emphasis on the states of Arizona and New Mexico.
