Pedestrial Traffic Fatalities by State(2022 preliminary data)

[Governors Highway Safety Association]

"Each year, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) provides a first look at national and state-level pedestrian fatality data and trends through a Spotlight on Highway Safety report, typically published in late spring or early summer.

This year’s report is divided into three sections. It presents pedestrian fatality projections for all of 2022 based on preliminary data provided by the states, an in-depth analysis of recently released 2021 pedestrian fatality data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and a review of strategies to reduce pedestrian crashes, injuries and deaths. As in previous reports, some preliminary data have been adjusted slightly to account for historical underreporting. A preliminary report analyzing state-reported pedestrian fatality data for the first six months of 2022 was released in February.

The first section of this report presents preliminary 2022 fatality data using information reported to GHSA by all states (except Oklahoma) and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Based on the state data, GHSA projects 7,508 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes, a 1% increase over the 7,443 pedestrian fatalities recorded by these 49 states and D.C. in 2021. This continues the upward trend that the United States has been experiencing for decades and represents the highest number of pedestrian deaths since 1981.

The second portion of the report analyzes the federal 2021 FARS data (the most recent national motor vehicle-related fatality data available), parsing out various characteristics of pedestrian fatalities. This includes fatality rates (per state population), where and when the crashes occurred, whether speeding or alcohol was involved, the type of vehicle involved and more.

Finally, the report includes examples of state- and community-level efforts to better understand the factors that contribute to pedestrian crashes and fatalities and, more importantly, how to prevent them from happening in the future. There is a particular emphasis on the Safe System approach, which recognizes both human mistakes and human vulnerability and designs a system with many redundancies in place to protect everyone..."
Pedestrial Traffic Fatilities 

Early Estimates of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities And Fatality Rate by Sub-Categories in 2021

"NHTSA has released a companion report presenting early estimates of traffic fatalities and fatality rates in 2021 (Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2021, Report No.DOT HS 813 283). That report shows the increased trend in fatalities in 2020 has continued into 2021, and the increased trend in fatality rate per 100 million VMT in 2020 continued into the first quarter of 2021 but decreased during the second, third, and the fourth quarters of 2021. This NHTSA note is being issued after conducting a special analysis of the fatalities and the fatality rates per 100 million VMT by key sub-categories in 2021. The analysis is based on ratio adjusted estimates of 2021 fatal crash data coded thus far into NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), as described in the Data and Methodology section.

For the whole of 2021, a statistical projection of traffic fatalities shows an increase of about 10.5 percent as compared to reported fatalities in 2020. Some categories showed large shifts in fatalities and fatality rates in a given month, compared to the corresponding month in 2020. For instance, the share of fatalities on urban roads went from 57 percent in March 2020 to 62 percent in March 2021, a 5-percentagepoint increase. Correspondingly, the total fatalities (fatality counts) on urban roads increased from 21,940 in 2020 to 25,411 in 2021, a 16-percent increase. In summary, the traffic fatalities (fatality counts) in the following categories showed relatively large increases in 2021 as compared to 2020..."
Traffic fatalities