U.S. pedestrian deaths moved in the right direction in 2025, but the latest numbers still show a serious safety problem. According to preliminary data from the Governors Highway Safety Association, drivers struck and killed an estimated 6,732 people walking or using wheelchairs in 2025. That was 7% fewer deaths than in 2024 and marked the third consecutive annual decline.
That progress matters. It suggests that safer driving, stronger enforcement, infrastructure improvements, public education, and other countermeasures may be helping. However, U.S. pedestrian deaths were still about 5% higher than in 2019, the final year before the pandemic-era surge in dangerous driving and roadway fatalities. In other words, the country has improved from its recent peak, but it has not fully returned to the safer baseline seen before 2020.
For readers following broader roadway trends, our Accident Statistics hub tracks major safety data, while the Road & Traffic Safety section covers new crash trends and prevention strategies. The latest pedestrian data adds an important lesson: national improvement does not mean every street, city, or road user is equally safe.
What the Latest U.S. Pedestrian Deaths Data Shows
A Third Straight Annual Decline Is Encouraging
The newest pedestrian fatality estimate continues a trend that began after the sharp increases seen earlier in the decade. GHSA projects that 6,732 pedestrians were killed in 2025, a reduction of 505 deaths from the previous year. That works out to roughly 18 pedestrian deaths every day across the United States.
Earlier data had already pointed toward improvement. During the first half of 2025, pedestrian deaths fell nearly 11% compared with the same period in 2024. By the time full-year preliminary numbers were available, the decline remained substantial at 7%. The fatality rate per 100,000 population also moved lower, reinforcing the idea that the improvement was not simply the result of population change.
Progress Is Real, but 2019 Remains an Important Benchmark
The decline is meaningful because it shows that high pedestrian fatality levels are not inevitable. Still, comparing 2025 only with 2024 can make the situation look better than it really is. The projected 2025 total remained about 5% above the 2019 level. That gap represents hundreds of additional deaths each year compared with the pre-pandemic period.
This is why safety trends should be reviewed across several years instead of judged from a single annual percentage. A three-year decline is much more encouraging than a one-year dip, yet the longer-term goal should be sustained improvement that brings pedestrian risk below earlier benchmarks, not merely back to them.
Where Pedestrian Crashes Happen Still Matters
Most pedestrian crashes occur in urban areas, where more people walk and where vehicles, intersections, transit stops, shops, schools, and residential activity frequently overlap. GHSA reported that 84% of pedestrian crashes in 2024 occurred in urban areas. However, rural pedestrian crashes were more likely to be fatal. Higher travel speeds, darker roads, fewer sidewalks, and longer emergency response times can all make rural collisions especially severe.
That contrast shows why a single national solution is not enough. A downtown corridor may need shorter crossings, protected signal phases, daylighting at intersections, and slower vehicle speeds. A rural community may need shoulders, sidewalks, lighting, speed management, and safer connections between homes, businesses, and transit stops. Local conditions should shape the response.
Nighttime, Vehicle Type, and Road Design Remain Major Risks
The overall decline in U.S. pedestrian deaths should not distract from the patterns that continue to appear in serious crashes. The latest GHSA analysis highlights nighttime visibility, vehicle size, missing sidewalks, hit-and-run crashes, and dangerous driving behavior as continuing concerns.
Darkness Remains One of the Clearest Warning Signs
More than three-quarters of pedestrian fatalities with known lighting conditions in 2024 happened after dark. GHSA reported that 76.5% occurred at night, compared with 19.9% in daylight and 3.6% around dawn or dusk. Darkness can reduce the time a driver has to detect a person, particularly on roads with high speeds, weak lighting, visual clutter, or long distances between safe crossings.
Visibility is not only a pedestrian responsibility. Drivers need to slow down when sight distance is limited, scan beyond the vehicle directly ahead, and expect people to be present near homes, businesses, transit stops, and entertainment districts. Street design also matters. Better lighting, visible crosswalks, median refuges, and lower operating speeds can give both drivers and pedestrians more time to recognize and avoid conflict.
Larger Vehicles and Missing Sidewalks Can Increase the Stakes
Vehicle mix is another important factor. Light trucks, a category that includes SUVs, pickups, and vans, were the striking vehicle in just over half of pedestrian fatalities in 2024. Passenger cars accounted for a smaller share. Larger vehicles can have taller front ends, greater mass, and different visibility characteristics, all of which can affect injury severity when a pedestrian is struck.
Infrastructure gaps are equally important. GHSA found that 62.2% of pedestrian fatalities in 2024 occurred in locations without a sidewalk. A missing sidewalk can force people onto shoulders, roadside areas, or travel lanes that were primarily designed for vehicle movement. For someone walking to work, a bus stop, school, or a nearby store, there may be no practical alternative.
Hit-and-run crashes remain another concern. In 2024, drivers who fled the scene struck and killed 1,669 pedestrians, representing nearly one-quarter of pedestrian fatalities. The figure was slightly lower than the year before, but the proportion remains disturbing because leaving the scene can delay emergency assistance and complicate investigations.
What Can Make Walking Safer in 2026 and Beyond
The Best Strategy Combines Safer Behavior, Roads, and Vehicles
There is no single fix for pedestrian fatalities. The strongest approach combines responsible road-user behavior with street design, vehicle technology, enforcement, and public policy. That is the logic behind the Safe System approach: people will make mistakes, so transportation systems should be designed to keep those mistakes from becoming fatal.
Speed management is one of the most important tools because impact speed strongly influences whether a pedestrian survives a collision. Slower operating speeds also give drivers more time to detect hazards and stop. Cities can support lower speeds through narrower travel lanes, raised crossings, curb extensions, roundabouts, signal timing, and other traffic-calming measures rather than relying only on posted limits.
Drivers can reduce risk immediately by treating pedestrian-heavy areas differently from open highways. That means slowing near crosswalks, schools, bus stops, shopping districts, neighborhoods, and poorly lit corridors. It also means eliminating phone use behind the wheel and never driving impaired. Our Safety Resources page provides additional prevention guidance that can support safer everyday decisions.
Communities and road agencies can focus on several proven priorities:
- Provide sidewalks and safe walking connections where people already travel.
- Improve street lighting and the visibility of crossings at night.
- Reduce dangerous vehicle speeds in places where people walk.
- Design shorter, simpler crossings with refuge space where needed.
- Use enforcement and education to address speeding, impairment, distraction, and failure to yield.
Vehicle design can also contribute. Automatic emergency braking systems that detect pedestrians, better forward visibility, improved headlights, and other crash-avoidance technologies may reduce some risks. However, technology should support attentive driving rather than encourage drivers to disengage from the road environment.
The newest pedestrian numbers offer a reason for cautious optimism. Three consecutive annual declines show that the United States can reverse a dangerous trend. At the same time, more than 6,700 projected pedestrian deaths in one year is still far too high, especially when many of the same risk factors continue to appear repeatedly.
For the full national analysis, review the Governors Highway Safety Association’s 2025 pedestrian fatality report. The most useful takeaway is not simply that the number went down. It is that safer streets require continued work. Better road design, lower speeds, safer vehicles, responsible driving, and stronger pedestrian infrastructure all need to move in the same direction if the recent progress is going to last.