From 2003 to 2012, traffic accidents killed 47,025 pedestrians on U.S. streets, according to a new report from Smart Growth America. On top of that, an estimated 676,000 pedestrians were injured from being struck by a vehicle. Nationally, pedestrians represented 12.3% of total traffic deaths over the decade measured.
The report, titled “Dangerous By Design 2014,” says many U.S. roadways fail to account for the safety of people on foot. According to the report, the majority of pedestrian deaths occur on arterial roadways, planned and engineered for speeding automobiles with little consideration for pedestrians.
The Smart Growth America report uses its Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI), which predicts the likelihood of a pedestrian being struck and killed by a vehicle, to rank all 50 states by how dangerous they are for pedestrians. The PDI is based on the number of local commuters who walk to work—what Smart Growth America says is the best available measure of how many people are likely to be out walking each day—and the most recent five years of data on pedestrian fatalities.
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