A Pedestrian Is Killed in a Traffic Crash in the U.S. Every 2 Hours

Traffic fatalities in the U.S. have been on a steady decline for nearly a decade, the result of safer cars, (hopefully) safer driver behavior, and laws that enforce seat belt use and crack down on hazards like drunken driving. But even in the midst of that big-picture trend, a small subset of this same data has lately been worrisome: Since 2009, pedestrian fatalities have actually been rising. And compared against national traffic statistics, as riding in cars has gotten safer, this means that pedestrians have grown to represent a larger share of all traffic fatalities in the U.S.

In 2011, pedestrians made up 14 percent of those traffic fatalities, up from 11 percent a decade ago.