Georgia Injury Law Blog
A new report finds that there was a slight drop in the number of pedestrians killed in auto accidents during the first 6 months of last year. While any decrease in deaths from car accidents is welcome, the question remains what changes can be made to more greatly reduce the number of pedestrian accidents in which persons lose their lives.
The report which showed the slight drop in pedestrian wrongful deaths was released by the Governors Highway Safety Association and analyzed preliminary data from the first 6 months of 2023. There was some good news in the report. According to the data, there was a slight drop of 4% in the number of pedestrians killed in auto accidents between January and June of last year. Many states, including Georgia, saw significant drops in the number of car accident deaths involving pedestrians last year.
The rates of pedestrian accident deaths have shot up since the pandemic, and especially during the worst days of 2022 when the numbers skyrocketed to their highest numbers in over 40 years. Since then, transportation safety experts in Georgia and around the country have struggled with bringing these numbers under control. The challenge has been even greater now that there are more vehicles on the road as companies end their work -from -home policies and require employees to return to work. The larger number of vehicles on the roads translates into a greater risk of being hit by a car while walking, and especially so during challenging times like these, when pedestrians are already at risk from a number of other factors that increase their risks of being involved in car accidents like poor infrastructure.