A pedestrian, as defined for the purpose of this Traffic Safety Fact Sheet publication, is any person on foot, walking, running, jogging, hiking, sitting or lying down who is involved in a motor vehicle traffic crash. For the purpose of this Traffic Safety Fact Sheet a traffic crash is an incident that involves one or more vehicles where at least one vehicle is in-transport and the crash originates on a public traffic way. Crashes that occurred exclusively on private property, including parking lots and driveways, were excluded. In 2009, 4,092 pedestrians were killed and an estimated 59,000 were injured in traffic crashes in the United States. On average, a pedestrian was killed every two hours and injured every nine minutes in traffic crashes. The 4,092 pedestrian fatalities in 2009 were a decrease of 7 percent from 2008 and a decrease of 14 percent from 2000. In 2009, pedestrian deaths accounted for 12 percent of all traffic fatalities, and made up 3 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes. Over 90 percent of the pedestrian fatalities occurred in single-vehicle crashes. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting