Los Angeles killed more people in traffic crashes than in homicides for the second year running, and pedestrians absorbed a disproportionate share of that toll. The city recorded 302 traffic deaths in 2024, down from 337 the year before, but 170 of those were people on foot, a toll that has climbed 93% since the city adopted its Vision Zero pledge to end traffic deaths in 2015, when 88 pedestrians died. Hit-and-run drivers were involved in 98 of the 2024 deaths, and severe injuries citywide topped 1,500 for the third straight year1.
County-wide, the picture is worse. Los Angeles County logged 273 pedestrian deaths in 2023, the highest of any county in California, along with 959 serious injuries, according to federal crash data compiled by UC Berkeley's Safe Transportation Research and Education Center from FARS and SWITRS records. Statewide that year, 92% of fatal pedestrian crashes happened in urban areas like LA, not on rural highways2.
Where the crashes cluster
Those deaths aren't spread evenly across the city's street grid. LADOT tracks what it calls the High Injury Network, now folded into a "Priority Intersections and Corridors" list, and the concentration is stark: just 7.5% of Los Angeles streets account for 72% of the crashes that kill or seriously injure someone walking. Vermont, Western, Olympic, Pico and Wilshire avenues all show up repeatedly on that list in the Koreatown area alone3.
That pattern held on July 23, 2026, just before 1 a.m., when 60-year-old Adrian Lyons was struck crossing Vermont Avenue at 7th Street. One driver stopped; a second reportedly fled. The driver who stayed told police there was a lack of visibility on the street3. Lyons was unhoused, a detail that matters statistically. Unhoused pedestrians and cyclists in LA County are 24 times more likely to die from traffic injuries than the county's population overall, up from 18 times in 2023, and roughly 230 unhoused people were killed by traffic in 2024 alone, according to the LA County Department of Public Health4.
The city's two worst intersections
An analysis of a decade of LAPD collision reports by Crosstown, a USC Annenberg data journalism project, found South Figueroa Street at Slauson Avenue, in the Vermont-Slauson area of South LA, to be the single most dangerous intersection in the city: 66 serious collisions between February 2021 and February 2025, including 17 felony hit-and-runs and seven pedestrians struck. Close behind is Sepulveda Boulevard at Roscoe Boulevard in Panorama City, with 65 serious collisions over the same span and at least one fatal hit-and-run that killed a 38-year-old cyclist. Crosstown built a top-20 list from the same LAPD data; those two intersections anchor it5.
Bicyclists face rising risk
Cyclists die on California roads at a higher rate than the national average, 3.9 per million residents against 2.6 nationally, and LA County sees an estimated 3,600 bicyclist injuries a year. Downtown carries the heaviest concentration of bike crashes, with Main Street at 1st Street identified as the single worst intersection for cyclists, followed by clusters at Olive and 7th, Hill and 5th, and along Washington Boulevard between Figueroa and Main6.
The toll keeps showing up in local news. In November 2025, a 37-year-old man riding a bicycle was killed by a motorcyclist in a South LA hit-and-run, one of at least 51 bicycling deaths tracked across Southern California that year, 11 of them in LA County, and more than a third involving a driver who fled7. Months earlier, 15-year-old Sebastian Carrillo was riding on the sidewalk along Nadeau Street near Croesus Avenue in South LA when a driver turned directly into him and kept going, leaving him with a concussion and cuts that needed stitches8.
Why Vision Zero hasn't delivered
An independent audit commissioned by the city's chief administrative officer, released in 2024, found that LA's Vision Zero steering committee had stopped meeting altogether by mid-2018 and that LADOT's own action plan hadn't been updated since that same year. Half of the 56 safety projects the plan promised were still incomplete more than five years after its deadline9. Traffic fatalities kept climbing anyway, rising roughly 26% from the year the program launched through 20248.
The county has a parallel problem outside city limits. In unincorporated communities, LA County Public Works reports an average of 100 traffic deaths and 450 severe injuries every year, and it now runs its own Vision Zero projects in places like Florence-Firestone, Lennox and along Mulholland Highway10.
What's changing on the ground
A handful of corridor rebuilds are underway or newly finished:
- The Rail-to-Rail path, a 5.5-mile car-free route through South LA between 11th Avenue and the Slauson Blue/A Line station, opened its first segment in May 2025. A feasibility study found the Slauson-area streets it replaced had averaged 360 bicycle collisions and 584 pedestrian collisions a year; the new path now carries about 4,300 pedestrians and 2,500 cyclists a day11.
- LADOT broke ground in mid-2025 on Mid-City Greenways, converting Rosewood Avenue, Formosa Avenue and Orange Drive into a four-mile network of traffic-calmed bike boulevards, with diverters, curb extensions and upgraded crossings due for completion by fall 202612.
- On Pico Boulevard between Crenshaw Boulevard and Figueroa Street, 3.4 miles logged 75 severe-injury or fatal crashes from 2014 through 2023, 52 of them involving a pedestrian and all 11 deaths pedestrians. LADOT's redesign will cut the road to one travel lane per direction plus a center turn lane and add protected bike lanes, with construction starting later in 2026 and lanes opening in spring 202713.
- On Pacific Coast Highway between Cross Creek Road and the Ventura County line, Caltrans has proposed a $55 million safety project adding 15 miles of new or upgraded bike lanes and nearly 7,000 feet of new sidewalk. As of late 2025, Malibu's planning commission was still weighing objections to it14.
After a crash
Get medical care first, and ask officers for the collision report number before leaving the scene. Speed and road design explain most of that concentration on a handful of corridors, not the choices pedestrians or cyclists made. If you need help sorting out fault, insurance, or a claim, the legal directory lists attorneys who handle pedestrian and bicycle cases in the LA area.
This article is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Crosstown LA, "Traffic deaths in Los Angeles exceed murder total for second consecutive year," https://xtown.la/2025/01/27/traffic-deaths-in-los-angeles-exceed-murder-total-for-second-consecutive-year/
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UC Berkeley SafeTREC, "2025 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Pedestrian Safety," https://safetrec.berkeley.edu/2025-safetrec-traffic-safety-facts-pedestrian-safety
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LA Local, "Man killed crossing street in Koreatown is latest death in city's ongoing crisis," https://thelalocal.org/los-angeles-city/koreatown-pedestrian-killed-crossing-the-steet-july-2026/
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LAist, "Deaths among unhoused LA County residents fell in 2024, marking first decline on record," https://laist.com/news/health/deaths-among-unhoused-la-county-residents-fell-in-2024-marking-first-decline-on-record
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Crosstown LA, "The most dangerous intersections in Los Angeles," https://xtown.la/2025/10/15/most-dangerous-intersections-in-los-angeles/
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People Powered Movement, "Los Angeles Bicycle Safety Overview: Infrastructure and Crash Stats," https://www.peoplepoweredmovement.org/los-angeles-bicycle-safety-overview-infrastructure-and-crash-stats/
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BikinginLA, "37-year old man riding bicycle killed by motorcyclist in South LA hit-and-run; over 1/3 of fatal SoCal bike crashes hit-and-run," https://bikinginla.com/2025/11/13/37-year-old-man-riding-bicycle-killed-by-motorcyclist-in-south-la-hit-and-run-over-1-3-of-fatal-socal-bike-crashes-hit-and-run/
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BikinginLA, "New report spells out LA's Vision Zero fail, and bike riders injured by drivers in South LA and Huntington Beach hit-and-runs," https://bikinginla.com/2025/04/16/new-report-spells-out-las-vision-zero-fail-and-bike-riders-injured-by-drivers-in-south-la-and-huntington-beach-hit-and-runs/
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LAist, "Lack of political will and poor coordination hamper LA goal to eliminate traffic deaths, audit finds," https://laist.com/brief/news/transportation/lack-of-political-will-and-poor-coordination-hamper-la-goal-to-eliminate-traffic-deaths-audit-finds
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Los Angeles County Public Works, Vision Zero, https://visionzero.lacounty.gov/
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Streetsblog Los Angeles, "Grand Opening of Transformative Rail-to-Rail Bike/Walk Path on Slauson Brings Community Out to Play," https://la.streetsblog.org/2025/05/22/grand-opening-of-transformative-rail-to-rail-bike-walk-path-on-slauson-brings-community-out-to-play
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Streetsblog Los Angeles, "City Breaks Ground on Mid-City Greenways Bike/Walk Improvements," https://la.streetsblog.org/2025/07/15/city-breaks-ground-on-mid-city-greenways-bike-walk-improvements
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LAist, "A dangerous stretch of Pico Boulevard is getting a major redesign," https://laist.com/transportation/dangerous-stretch-pico-boulevard-major-redesign
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Streetsblog Los Angeles, "Two Weeks After Anniversary of Fatal Malibu Crash, City Could Reject PCH Safety Improvements," https://la.streetsblog.org/2025/10/31/two-weeks-after-anniversary-of-fatal-malibu-crash-city-could-reject-pch-safety-improvements