Georgia Injury Law Blog
Walking has probably never been more dangerous in the United States. Pedestrian fatality numbers in 2016 increased for the second consecutive year. What’s more, those fatality numbers are at alarming new highs.
Data presented by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) finds that projected pedestrian accident fatality numbers increased by approximately 11% between 2015 and 2016 – the biggest year-to-year spike since the organization began tracking those numbers. In the first half of 2016, there were 2,660 fatalities in pedestrian accidents. During the same period of time in 2015, there were 2,486 fatalities. The report projects a 22% increase in pedestrian fatalities in 2016 from 2014.
Overall, pedestrians now account for approximately 15% of all traffic accident fatalities in the United States. When the final numbers come in for 2017, the GHSA believes that the number of pedestrian traffic fatalities could actually be more than 6,000 pedestrian deaths for the first time in 20 years. Overall, the number of fatalities actually increased by 25% between 2010 and 2015. That is even as the total number of traffic accident fatalities overall increased by just 6%.