Road Users

National Safety Council analysis of NHTSA pedestrian traffic fatality data show a general decline in the number of pedestrian fatalities from 1994 through 2009. Starting in 2010, pedestrian fatalities have been trending up. In 2021, pedestrian deaths increased 12.5% from 2020. Pedestrian fatalities as a percent of all traffic fatalities increased steadily from 2005 through 2018, from 11.2% to 17.3%, respectively. Since 2018, the percent has been relatively stable, accounting for 17.2% in 2021.

While pedestrians accounted for about 17% of traffic deaths in 2021, this percent varies by age. Pedestrians represent 19% or more of traffic deaths among 35- to 74-year-olds. The largest number of pedestrian deaths occur among 55- to 64-year-olds (1,343). While children under aged 5 to 9 experienced the fewest number of pedestrian deaths (50) in 2021, these deaths still represented nearly 14% of all traffic deaths for this age group.

Alcohol impairment was a factor in 41% of all pedestrian fatalities in 2020, accounting for 2,647 deaths. The pedestrian is the only impaired individual 25% of the time, the driver is the only individual impaired 10% of the time, while both the pedestrian and the driver are impaired 6% of the time.

Data available from NHTSA primarily focus on crashes involving public trafficways and excludes incidents occurring on driveways and parking lots. However, some non-traffic data are available through NHTSA’s Non-Traffic Surveillance System. The visualization below illustrates the number of pedestrian deaths and nonfatal injuries occurring in parking lots and driveways. Use the visualization to explore these pedestrian incidents by location of crash, movement of vehicle striking the pedestrian, month of crash, and age of pedestrian. As can be seen, children age 0 to 4 experienced the most fatalities in 2020. The largest share of these deaths resulted from crashes occurring on residential driveways. Young adults, aged 15 to 24, experienced the most nonfatal injuries. The largest proportion of the injuries resulted from crashes occurring in commercial parking lots.

Source: NSC analysis of NHTSA FARS data