Pedestrian and Overall Road Traffic Crash Deaths — United States and 27 Other High-Income Countries, 2013–2022
Open accessAbstract
Road traffic deaths are preventable but remain a major public health problem. Crashes cause more than 40,000 deaths annually in the United States, and traffic-related pedestrian deaths have increased rapidly. To examine change in pedestrian and overall traffic death rates (deaths per 100,000 population) within an international context, CDC analyzed 2013-2022 data from the United States and 27 other high-income countries in the International Road Traffic and Accident Database, as well as early 2023 U.S. estimates. Between 2013 and 2022, U.S. pedestrian death rates increased 50% (from 1.55 to 2.33 per 100,000 population), while other countries generally experienced decreases (median decrease = 24.7%). During this period, overall U.S. traffic death rates increased 22.5% (from 10.41 to 12.76), but decreased by a median of 19.4% in 27 other high-income countries. Among all countries examined, the United States had the highest pedestrian death rates overall and among persons aged 15-24 and 25-64 years. Projected 2023 U.S. estimates suggest a potential decline in pedestrian (2%) and overall traffic (4%) deaths, compared with those in 2022. Accelerated adoption of a Safe System approach, focused on creating safer roadways and vehicles, establishing safer speeds, supporting safer road users, and improving post-crash care, can help reduce U.S. pedestrian and overall traffic deaths.
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Vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists bear a disproportionately high burden of severe injury and death in collisions.
“This question is especially urgent for vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians and cyclists, who bear a disproportionately high burden of severe injury and death in collisions.”
From Ethics-Aware Safe Reinforcement Learning for Rare-Event Risk Control in Interactive Urban Driving (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports a rapid rise in U.S. pedestrian deaths, and the ‘What is added by this report?’ section reports higher U.S. pedestrian death rates than in the other countries studied. The paper does not establish that pedestrians and cyclists together bear a disproportionate burden of severe injury and death relative to other road users; it does not report cyclist deaths or severe-injury rates. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn 2022, 7,522 pedestrians were killed and more than 67,000 injured in the U.S. according to NHTSA.
“According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 7,522 pedestrians were killed and more than 67,000 injured in 2022 [3].”
From Ethics-Aware Safe Reinforcement Learning for Rare-Event Risk Control in Interactive Urban Driving (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
The Introduction reports 7,522 U.S. pedestrian deaths in 2022, and its cited source is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (References, item 1). Our copy does not report more than 67,000 pedestrian injuries; searches for that figure and for pedestrian injuries did not find support. (LLM, conf=0.90)
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Research works printed but not linked: 6
- [2]Sauber-Schatz EK, Ederer DJ, Dellinger AM, Baldwin GT. Vital signs: motor vehicle injury prevention—United States and 19 comparison countries. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2016; 65: 672– 7. 10.15585/mmwr.mm6526e1 27388054 · DOI
- [3]Yellman MA, Sauber-Schatz EK. Motor vehicle crash deaths—United States and 28 other high-income countries, 2015 and 2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022; 71: 837– 43. 10.15585/mmwr.mm7126a1 35771709 · DOI
- [4]Schneider RJ. United states pedestrian fatality trends, 1977 to 2016. Transp Res Rec 2020; 2674: 1069– 83. 10.1177/0361198120933636 · DOI
- [7]Schneider RJ, Proulx FR, Sanders RL, Moayyed H. United States fatal pedestrian crash hot spot locations and characteristics. J Transp Land Use 2021; 14: 1– 23. 10.5198/jtlu.2021.1825 · DOI
- [9]Benediktsson MO. Beyond the sidewalk: pedestrian risk and material mismatch in the American suburbs. Mobilities 2017; 12: 76– 96. 10.1080/17450101.2015.1019748 · DOI
- [10]Wilmut K, Purcell C. Why are older adults more at risk as pedestrians? a systematic review. Hum Factors 2022; 64: 1269– 91. 10.1177/0018720821989511 33555944 PMC9643822 · DOI
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Ethics-Aware Safe Reinforcement Learning for Rare-Event Risk Control in Interactive Urban Driving
Li, D., & Okhrin, O. (2026) · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1109/tpami.2026.3708405
- Authors
- Naumann, R. B., West, B. A., Barry, V., Matthews, S., & Lee, R.
- Affiliations
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US)
- Corresponding author
- Naumann, Rebecca B.
- Venue
- MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
- Published
- 2025-03-13
- Volume
- 74
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 134-139
- ISSN
- 0149-2195 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-861X
- PMC
- PMC11952289
- OpenAlex
- W4408410212
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 8
- FWCI
- 12.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality › Traffic and Road Safety
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Injury Epidemiology and Prevention
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Civil and Structural Engineering › Transportation Systems and Logistics
- Keywords
- traffic fatalities, pedestrian fatalities, mortality rates, cross-national comparison, high-income countries, Safe System approach, road safety, United States
- MeSH terms
- Accidents, Traffic, Pedestrians, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Child, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Middle Aged, United States, Developed Countries, Young Adult
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