Study: Pedestrian deaths on rise, Florida has 7 of 20 most dangerous cities

Illinois is part of a national trend seeing a spike in pedestrian deaths along the state's roadways.

According to a new report by Smart Growth America, Illinois ranks 34th overall when it comes to fatalities per 100,000 residents, but Steve Davis, assistant vice president of transportation strategy at Smart Growth America with Smart Growth America, says that’s a bit misleading.

“This does not mean that Illinois is safe,” David said. “This means that Illinois is not as bad as some states that are staggeringly more deadly.”

New Mexico’s fatality rate was three times that of Illinois. Florida, meanwhile, contained seven of the 20 most dangerous metropolitan areas in the country.

“No one is good,” Davis said. “There are no states that are doing great. There are no states that are very safe when we compare ourselves to other developed countries around the world.”

Pedestrian deaths on Illinois roads jumped nearly 14% in the first year of the pandemic, with more than 800 fatalities recorded between 2016 and 2020.

“The general trend across the country is one that's very bad,” Davis said. “Pedestrian fatalities are up about 62% going back to 2009, which was the first year that they started increasing again after a decade of kind of going down. Then for this last decade, as traffic fatalities overall have decreased, pedestrian fatalities have really skyrocketed.”

He said one major factor in the increase is that the vehicles that we drive are changing.

“More trucks and SUVs are sold than passenger cars,” David said. “That’s a massive change. These are vehicles that are more likely to, when they strike someone, result in a fatality than an injury.”

The report also notes that what’s changed inside our vehicles also plays a role. A move away from tactile buttons and toward larger touch screens that require more attention can serve to distract drivers behind the wheel.

Davis said an across-the-board effort is needed to make streets safer for people who are walking.

“We have focused on making travel within a car safer, and we need that same sort of holistic effort to make our streets safer for people walking and for everyone that uses our streets,” Davis said.

The priority of most street planning is moving as many cars as fast as possible as opposed to taking all users into consideration, he said.

“We are never going to be able to solve a problem with a million dollars that we are creating with a billion dollars,” Davis said. “Our entire transportation program at the federal level and in each state needs to transform to become a safety program.”

Nationwide, the number of people struck and killed while walking reached a new high in 2020, with more than 6,500 fatalities in 2020. That’s an average of nearly 18 per day and a 4.5% increase over 2019.