Pedestrian deaths have dropped recently but are still 14% higher than they were pre-pandemic. The deaths are clustered in areas mostly in the South and West, according to a Stateline analysis of records from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And though cities have higher overall numbers of pedestrian deaths, per capita pedestrian-death rates are highest in more rural states like New Mexico, which has nation’s highest rate, at 6.1 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents in 2023.
At a county level, the Stateline analysis also found that more than three-quarters of counties with pedestrian death rates have persistently high poverty rates, in places like Washington County, Mississippi, a rural county with a poverty rate of 29% and a pedestrian-death rate of 9.5 per 100,000 residents. Fatality rates are five times higher for low-income neighborhoods compared with high-income neighborhoods. Death rates increase as incomes drop.
The deadliest combination for pedestrians: areas that are both poor and rural.
“Pedestrians die at the highest rates in brightly lit cities, where sidewalks are crowded with office workers, but in Western and Southern rural areas and small cities, where poverty forces more people to walk on dark highways with inadequate sidewalks or shoulders.”
More deaths are found on what a New Mexico transportation expert calls “stroads,” throughways that serve both the roles of streets, carrying foot traffic, and roads, which are designs to push cars through as fast as possible.
“These thoroughfares are the worst for the drivers and the worst for pedestrians,” said Julian Padilla, a transportation planner for New Mexico’s Mid-Region Council of Governments. “Drivers aren’t expecting to see pedestrians, and pedestrians aren’t expecting the speed of the cars and might perceive it incorrectly, especially in the dark, when most of these accidents happen.
In urban areas too, pedestrian deaths often are found in low-income areas with multi-lane streets that were never designed for foot traffic.
Motorist habits that rose to the fore during the pandemic – described by Stateline as “fast-driving and rule-skirting” – have prompted state and local officials to try to prevent pedestrian deaths with brighter lighting, better sidewalks, crosswalks with automatic flashing signs and “road diets,” that slim down the number of traffic lanes at crossing areas.
Planners are also using artificial intelligence to detect pedestrians about to step into the street, which would then trigger flashing lights to warn drivers.
Yet in Albuquerque, a group found that recent improvements in lighting seemed to be geared more toward vehicular traffic, not toward pedestrians.
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