Pedestrian traffic deaths decline for first time since pandemic after 40-year high in 2022

Pedestrian traffic deaths declined last year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic but remained well above pre-pandemic levels, the Governors Highway Safety Association said in a news release Wednesday. 

In 2023, drivers struck and killed 7,318 people in the United States, according to preliminary data from the non-profit association that represents the nation's highway offices. The data comes from state highway safety offices in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. 

The number of deaths in 2023 were down 5.4% from the year prior — which saw a 40-year high — but were 14.1% higher than the amount of pedestrian traffic deaths recorded in 2019, the association said. 

"A decline in pedestrian deaths offers hope that after years of rising fatalities a new trend is starting," association CEO Jonathan Adkins said in the news release. "Each death is tragic and preventable. We know how to improve safety for people walking – more infrastructure, vehicles designed to protect people walking, lower speeds and equitable traffic enforcement. It will take all this, and more, to keep the numbers going in the right direction."

The report also analyzed 2022 data to determine trends in pedestrian traffic fatalities. The report showed that pedestrian deaths are increasing at a "rate far faster" than overall traffic fatalities. 

The data show that the "vast majority" of pedestrian fatalities occur at night, with nighttime fatal pedestrian crashes nearly doubling from 2010 to 2022, the report said. Daylight fatalities increased by just 28% during that same time period. 

The majority of pedestrian fatalities also occurred in areas where no sidewalk was noted in the crash report, and more than three-quarters of pedestrian deaths were not at an intersection. 

Also to blame are larger vehicles, the GHSA said. Between 2010 and 2019, the amount of pedestrian deaths involving passenger cars and light trucks — a category that includes SUVs, pickup trucks and vans — remained largely static. But in 2020, light trucks began to account for "a much larger share of pedestrian fatalities as their proportion of U.S. new vehicle sales continued to climb." In 2022, light trucks accounted for more than half of all pedestrian deaths where the vehicle type was known.  

The report comes as the nation spends billions to try and reduce traffic fatalities. Between 2022 and 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation spent a total of $2.4 billion on programs aimed at reducing traffic fatalities, CBS News previously reported. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CBS News in March that he hopes projects scheduled to be implemented in the summer of 2024 can help reduce traffic fatalities.

"We are in a state of crisis, and it does not get nearly enough attention," said Buttigieg. "I don't just care about this as a policymaker, I care about it as a pedestrian. I care about it as a parent." 

In:
• Death
• Traffic

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

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