Pedestrian fatality trends

Drivers killed 7,080 pedestrians on U.S. roads in 2024, about one every 74 minutes.¹ That's a 4% drop from the year before, the second straight annual decline after a decade of mostly rising numbers.¹ Zoom out, though, and the picture is still bleak: 2024's total is 48% higher than 2013, when 4,779 people walking were struck and killed.² Pedestrian deaths peaked at 7,593 in 2022, the highest single-year count in more than four decades, and have pulled back only about 7% since.²

Early 2025 data suggests that pullback is accelerating. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimates 3,024 pedestrians died in the first half of 2025, down 10.9% from the same period in 2024, the steepest six-month drop GHSA has recorded in the 15 years it has tracked this data.³ GHSA projects 2025 will finish near 6,732 deaths, which would still sit about 5% above pre-pandemic 2019 levels.³ The decline shows up in rate terms too: 0.90 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people in the first half of 2025, the lowest six-month rate since 2020, and 1.86 deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled, the lowest since 2019.³ The pattern wasn't uniform across the country. Pedestrian deaths rose in 24 states and fell in 23 states plus the District of Columbia over that same year-over-year window, with a 32% drop in California doing much of the work on the decline side.³

A decade of climbing numbers, then two years of decline

Source: NHTSA FARS annual Traffic Safety Facts: Pedestrians reports.^{2 1}

The longer FARS record shows pedestrian deaths declining fairly steadily through the 1990s and 2000s, then reversing course around 2009 and climbing in nearly every year that followed.² Total traffic deaths didn't rise nearly as fast over that same stretch. Pedestrians accounted for 18% of all U.S. traffic deaths in both 2023 and 2024, a share NHTSA tracks closely because it has grown even as vehicle safety technology has improved for the people inside the car.^{2 1}

FARS counts also get revised as state records finalize. NHTSA's dedicated 2023 pedestrian report put that year's toll at 7,314; its later 2024 crash overview revised the 2023 figure up slightly, to 7,367, once more records came in.^{2 1} That's a routine part of how FARS works, not a data error. Figures for the same year can differ a little depending on which report you're reading.

How the U.S. compares with the rest of the world

A CDC study published in March 2025 compared U.S. pedestrian death rates against 27 other high-income countries from 2013 to 2022. The U.S. rate rose 50%, from 1.55 to 2.33 deaths per 100,000 people, while the other countries saw a median decline of 24.7% over the same span.⁴ Overall U.S. traffic death rates, not limited to pedestrians, climbed 22.5% across that decade, while the peer-country median fell 19.4%.⁴ Among all 28 countries studied, the U.S. had the highest pedestrian death rate for people ages 15 to 24 and 25 to 64.⁴

Source: CDC, MMWR, Naumann et al., 2025.⁴

By 2022, the U.S. pedestrian death rate was roughly three times the median rate among its peer countries, even though most of those countries also motorized and suburbanized over the same decades.⁴

Where and when pedestrians are killed

NHTSA's 2023 pedestrian report breaks the circumstances down in detail. Urban roads accounted for 84% of pedestrian deaths that year, versus 16% in rural areas.² Seventy-four percent happened away from an intersection, 17% at an intersection, and the remaining 9% somewhere else, such as a parking lot or driveway.² Alcohol, in the driver, the pedestrian, or both, was reported in 46% of fatal pedestrian crashes in 2023.²

The 2024 breakdown looks a little different. Alcohol involvement measured 37% that year: the pedestrian alone tested positive 22% of the time, the driver alone 11%, and both 5%.¹ One in four pedestrians killed in 2024 died in a hit-and-run.¹ And 74% of 2024's pedestrian deaths happened in the dark, whether or not the road had lighting.¹

The vehicles involved

Among 2023 pedestrian deaths where the striking vehicle's type was known, light trucks, meaning SUVs, pickups, and vans, were involved in 54%, compared with 37% for passenger cars.² NHTSA's data doesn't establish that vehicle type causes the gap; it only shows which vehicles were on scene when pedestrians died.

Who is most at risk

Men accounted for 70% of pedestrians killed in 2023, a share that has held steady across recent years.² Age matters too, in a way that's easy to miss in the topline numbers. Nineteen percent of all traffic deaths among people 65 and older in 2023 were pedestrians, above the 18% pedestrian share across all ages, and 17% of children 14 and younger who died in traffic crashes that year were on foot rather than in a vehicle.² A pedestrian was killed every 72 minutes in 2023 and every 74 minutes in 2024, with another injured every 8 minutes and every 7 minutes in those same years.^{2 1}

Where pedestrians face the highest risk

State totals vary sharply. New Mexico recorded the nation's highest per-capita pedestrian fatality rate for the eighth consecutive year in 2024, at 4.41 deaths per 100,000 residents, more than double the national rate of 2.10.⁵ That was despite real progress: New Mexico's pedestrian death count fell from 108 in 2023 to 94 in 2024, a 13% one-year drop that state officials credited partly to new pedestrian hybrid beacons and warning systems installed in cities including Albuquerque.⁶ Arizona, Delaware, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Nevada all posted rates above 3.0 per 100,000 that same year.⁵

Source: Governors Highway Safety Association, 2024 Data.⁵

Density complicates the picture. In Washington, D.C., pedestrians made up 32% of all traffic deaths in 2023, the highest share of any state or the district.⁷ Fewer trips there happen by car in the first place, so a larger portion of the smaller fatal crash total involves someone walking.

What a pedestrian death costs

NHTSA's most recent economic analysis, built on 2019 crash data, the latest year fully studied, put the average discounted lifetime economic cost of a single traffic fatality at $1.6 million, rising to $11.3 million once quality-of-life losses are included.⁸ Multiply that by thousands of pedestrian deaths a year, and the numbers above become a recurring, multibillion-dollar cost carried by families and insurers.

The federal safety-standard response

Regulators have also moved on the vehicle side of the equation. In September 2024, NHTSA proposed a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, FMVSS No. 228, that would require passenger cars, pickups, SUVs, vans, and smaller buses, up to 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight, to pass a head-to-hood impact test aimed at reducing serious and fatal head injuries in pedestrian crashes at speeds up to 25 mph, a range that covers about 70% of pedestrian impacts.⁹ The proposed compliance date is the first September 1 that falls at least two years after a final rule is published, with an extra year granted to final-stage manufacturers.⁹ As of this writing, the rule has not been finalized.

Tracking the pattern crash by crash

National and state totals are annual snapshots. Individual crash reports show how the patterns above actually play out block by block: which roads, and what time of night. thatcarhitme.com's crash data tool lets you filter recent pedestrian crash reports by location and circumstance, so you can see how a specific area compares with the national figures in this article.

If you or someone you love was hit by a vehicle, questions about medical bills and lost income are separate from the statistics above. An attorney who handles pedestrian injury cases can help sort through those questions. thatcarhitme.com's legal directory is a place to start looking for one in your area.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. NHTSA National Center for Statistics and Analysis, "Research Note: Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2024," DOT HS 813 791. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813791

2. NHTSA National Center for Statistics and Analysis, "Pedestrians: 2023 Data," Traffic Safety Facts, DOT HS 813 727, June 2025. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813727

3. Governors Highway Safety Association, "U.S. Pedestrian Deaths Fall 11% in First Half of 2025, According to New GHSA Research." https://www.ghsa.org/news/us-pedestrian-deaths-fall-11-first-half-2025-according-new-ghsa-research

4. Naumann RB, West BA, Barry V, Matthews S, Lee R. "Pedestrian and Overall Road Traffic Crash Deaths, United States and 27 Other High-Income Countries, 2013-2022." MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2025;74(8):134-139. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7408a2.htm

5. Governors Highway Safety Association, "Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2024 Data," July 2025. https://www.ghsa.org/resource-hub/pedestrian-traffic-fatalities-2024-data

6. New Mexico Department of Transportation, "New Mexico Sees Decline in Pedestrian Fatalities in 2024," July 21, 2025. https://www.dot.nm.gov/blog/2025/07/21/new-mexico-sees-decline-in-pedestrian-fatalities-in-2024/

7. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, "Fatality Facts 2023: State by state." https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state

8. NHTSA National Center for Statistics and Analysis, "The Economic and Societal Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2019 (Revised)," DOT HS 813 403, February 2023. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813403

9. NHTSA, "Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Pedestrian Head Protection, Global Technical Regulation No. 9," Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 89 Fed. Reg. 76403 (September 19, 2024). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/09/19/2024-20653/federal-motor-vehicle-safety-standards-pedestrian-head-protection-global-technical-regulation-no-9