Arizona has the highest rate of pedestrian deaths, according to a newly released study.
Pedestrians in Arizona are more likely to die in traffic fatalities than those in any other state. Numbers recorded for the first six months of 2017 from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association show Arizona has a pedestrian death rate of 1.61 per 100,000 people. That’s almost double the national average of .81.
Not considering population, Arizona still ranks at the top of the list for most pedestrian deaths. In fact, Arizona has the fifth-most pedestrian deaths in the country, according to the study. Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and New York accounted for almost half of all pedestrian deaths in the United States from January to June 2017. Those five states represent only about 30 percent of the nation’s population.
There were 2,636 pedestrian deaths in the United States in the first six months of 2017; 113 of those deaths were in Arizona. In January, Alberto Gutier with the Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety told 12 News his office estimates 215 pedestrians died in Arizona in 2017. The new GHSA estimates 5,984 pedestrians were killed in motor vehicle crashes nationwide in 2017.
The GHSA study included some data on the 10 most populous U.S. cities and found that Phoenix had the largest percent increase of pedestrian deaths from 58 in 2015 to 90 in 2016. Those numbers are collected from a separate agency that has not completed numbers for 2017 yet.