Searching for the ‘Smoking Gun’ in US Pedestrian Deaths - Beehaw

archive.is link [https://archive.ph/BEXkx] > In March, the Governors Highway Safety Association announced that some 3,2024 people died while walking in the US during the first half of 2025, a drop of almost 11% from 2024. It’s a welcome dip, but the GHSA quickly put the figure in perspective, noting that footgoer fatalities remain 2.5% higher than in 2019, the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with a surge in traffic deaths. > > Moreover, the country remains a grim outlier when it comes to pedestrian safety: Between 2013 and 2022, deaths rose by half in the US, even as 27 other rich nations saw an average 25% decline. > > The New York Times, Vox, and NPR are among the many media outlets that have asked why walking became so deadly for Americans, and they’ve found plenty of possible answers, including street lighting and roadway design as well as driver distractions from smartphones and vehicle infotainment systems. Another frequently cited culprit: the expanding size of trucks and SUVs, also known as car bloat. The debate continues to rage. > > Nick Ferenchak, a professor of engineering at the University of New Mexico, has had a unique vantage on this conversation. He leads the Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety, a federal cross-university research program that investigates the dangers that vulnerable street users face and identifies ways to mitigate them. Supported by $10 million in funding from the US Department of Transportation, it’s the first University Transportation Center to focus specifically on pedestrians and cyclists. > > At a research conference earlier this year, Ferenchak sat down with Bloomberg CityLab contributor David Zipper to discuss what academics have learned about the US pedestrian safety crisis as well as the questions that continue to puzzle them. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.