The number of pedestrians killed in the US each year has increased 78% since 2009:
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The number of pedestrians killed in the US each year has increased 78% since 2009:
This comes after decades of steady decline, causing many to wonder: What the hell is going on?
Brian Potter of Construction Physics recently tried to answer this question, here. Perhaps the two most common theories are that (1) bigger cars have become more popular (and bigger cars are more deadly to pedestrians), and (2) people are increasingly distracted by smartphones.
In his view, the SUV theory is maybe supportable, but the evidence is mixed. Pedestrian deaths involving smaller cars like Honda Civics are also up substantially. So it doesn’t seem to be just that.
As for the smartphone theory, Potter cites data showing that traffic accidents rarely report “distracted” driving. I call bullshit. I suspect it's because drivers don’t want to admit they were scrolling through TikTok; but even then, it doesn’t appear to be the clear cause. Smartphones are global, and yet this surge in pedestrian deaths is a uniquely American problem (based on other data from Potter).
So what is it?
My view — and this isn’t mentioned in the article — is that built form must be a factor. Much of it comes down to how we design our cities. Intuitively, this makes sense to me. But there’s also data to support it. First, if we look at pedestrian deaths per capita, there’s a clear bias toward the South and West, both of which tend to have more car-oriented urban patterns compared to the older cities in the North.
Second, if you drill down into specific urban environments — including those adopting strong Vision Zero policies — you’ll see that local trends don’t always match what we’re seeing nationally or even at the state level. For example, in recent years, cities like New York have become much safer for pedestrians:
New York City continues to defy national trends around pedestrian deaths, which are currently at a four-decade high nationwide. Traffic fatalities were down in four of the five major travel modes the DOT tracks. Compared to 2013—the last year before implementation of Vision Zero—New York City traffic deaths have dropped by 14.7%, from 299 that year. Pedestrian deaths have decreased by 35.9% compared to 2013 figures. Cyclist fatalities were also down for the third straight year (17 in 2022, down from a 20-year high of 28 in 2019), declining even as bicycle ridership has soared in recent years.
So my simple theory is this: Human-scaled spaces that are designed around pedestrians, rather than cars, are less likely to kill pedestrians.
At the same time, I do think we’ll see pedestrian deaths naturally come down in the US as autonomous vehicles become more widespread. AVs are already better — or at least safer — drivers than humans, and that will help. None of us should be driving cars anymore if you're just looking at the safety data. But I don’t see that as a good reason not to create more human-scaled spaces. They offer us much more than just safety.
Diagrams: Construction Physics
About a year ago, I wrote this post saying that autonomous vehicles were already safer than human-driven ones. This claim was based on safety data from Waymo and about 22 million rider-only miles. (Rider-only means no human driver.) A year later, Waymo now has over 96 million rider-only miles across Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin (through to June 2025) — and their safety record is only becoming more compelling.
Here's an updated data set and a chart showing any-injury-reported crashes (average benchmark vs. Waymo):
What immediately stands out is that Waymo has virtually eliminated the most common and deadly type of crash: vehicle-to-vehicle crashes within intersections. Compared to the benchmark, they are down 96%. They've also reduced single-vehicle crashes by 96%, pedestrian crashes by 92%, motorcycle crashes by 89%, and cyclist crashes by 78%. These are all remarkable figures and evidence that we are solving one of society's greatest safety problems.
It also tells me that, as humans, our driving days are numbered. Pretty soon nobody will want us behind the wheel of a car. It will be viewed as too dangerous. And that's fine by me.
Waymo has just been granted approval to test its autonomous vehicles in New York City. The permit allows up to eight of the company's Jaguar SUVs to circulate in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. And according to the company, the plan is to start "immediately." This first approval only runs until the end of September, after which it will need to be extended — but I'm guessing that shouldn't be too difficult to obtain.
What's noteworthy about this announcement is that (1) New York City is a big and complex place and (2) it's the first city for Waymo that receives snow. The company currently operates in San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
That said, the company has been doing cold weather testing since, I think, 2012. And in 2016, they opened a 53,000-square-foot self-driving center in Michigan for this purpose. They've also run tests in Truckee, California, Upstate New York, and the Detroit area. So presumably its sensors are ready to melt snow and ice. But it's looking like the true test will be on the streets of New York.
Next should be Toronto.
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