The number of pedestrian deaths on the roadway has increased exponentially since 2010, reaching the highest levels in over 40 years. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) projects that 7,508 people were killed while walking in 2022 which is the highest number of pedestrians killed since 1981 when 7,837 pedestrians were killed on the road. Between 2010 and 2021, GHSA says that pedestrian fatalities increased 77 percent, making walking on US roads tremendously more dangerous than it was before this period. There is no single explanation as to why it is getting significantly more dangerous to walk on US roads, but there are several major contributing factors.
The Impact of Deadly Road Design
One of the main contributing factors is deadly road design. After World War II, new communities emerged with the idea that they would be driving everywhere they went. As a result, government planners designed wide, multi-lane roads designed for high-speed travel. As the car business continued to grow, and government planners continued to add more roads and increased the number of lanes on the roads, the roads have become significantly less pedestrian friendly. As a result, the number of pedestrian fatalities has increased.
Larger Vehicles are on the Roads
Another one of the main reasons why pedestrian deaths are increasing so rapidly on the roads is the recent increase in the number of larger vehicles on the road compared to smaller vehicles. From 2000 to 2019, the percentage of large vehicles on the road increased from 10% to 30%, and the percentage of small vehicles on the road decreased from 60% to 40%. These larger SUVs are significantly wider and heavier than smaller cars. Therefore, if a larger and heavier car were to hit a pedestrian on the roadway, the percentage of fatalities occurring would be much larger compared to a smaller, lighter car. There has also been a recent increase in the number of electric vehicles on the road. Electric vehicles are significantly heavier and quieter than gas-powered cars, making them more likely to cause fatality in the event of a collision with a pedestrian. When pedestrians walk, they tend to use both their eyes and their ears when looking for cars. Some electric vehicles are virtually silent at slow speeds making pedestrian crashes much more likely to occur.
Reckless Driving Habits
Another factor that played a large role in the recent increase in pedestrian fatalities on the roadway is the occurrence of the COVID 19 outbreak. The number of pedestrian accidents continued to rise gradually from 2010 to 2019 due to the reasons mentioned above. However, these numbers skyrocketed from 2020 up until the present day with the main reason being COVID 19. In 2021 7,624 pedestrians were killed in the US, a 13% increase from the year before. Many believe that this increase is due to COVID because most people were staying at home during this period, causing the roads to be much more empty than usual. As a result, many people developed reckless driving habits that did not account for the possibility that there could be a pedestrian in the road because there was rarely ever anyone on the road during the lockdown that came with COVID. Many drivers still possess these habits nowadays, making the road more dangerous for pedestrians as well as other drivers. The pandemic also brought an abundance of social turmoil with it that led to a fraying of the social contract that resulted in Americans acting and driving more recklessly and aggressively than before.
Get The Help You Need – Get David Get Paid
If you or anyone that you know are ever injured in a car or motorcycle accident, be sure to call the experienced team of lawyers at Femminineo Law at 586-954-9500 or contact us.
