Arizona has a lot of commuters who rely on their feet instead of their cars. But a recently released study shows that not only the state of Arizona but also its largest metro area, can be a dangerous place for pedestrians and have a higher number of pedestrian accidents.
AZ Pedestrians Likely to be Hit and Killed by a Vehicle
According to a study from a Washington, D.C.-based group, both Arizona and the Valley ranked among the top 10 spots in the nation where pedestrians are likely to be hit and killed by a vehicle. The group touts that it focuses on building smarter communities. Arizona came in eighth in the rankings of the group’s “Pedestrian Danger Index,” with a score of 101.2 during the five years the report covered.
“Pedestrian Danger Index”
The “Pedestrian Danger Index” was devised to calculate a ranking among the 50 states plus the District of Columbia by using each state’s population, annual pedestrian fatalities, and the percentage of commuters walking to work between the years of 2003 and 2012. The metro-area rankings include data from 2008 to 2012.
A Focus on Arizona’s Pedestrians
A sharper focus was brought to Arizona’s largest cities. The Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metro area ranked ninth in pedestrian danger among the nation’s metropolitan districts defined by the U.S. Census. The study goes on to suggest that areas with less dangerous indexes are more compactly developed and thus, focus more on pedestrian safety. The national index average is 52.2 and Arizona’s index almost doubles that. The state’s percent of pedestrian traffic deaths from 2003 to 2012 was 14.4. That number is more than two points above the national average.
During the same decade of 2003 to 2012, 47,025 pedestrians died and an estimated 676,000 were injured across the nation. According to the National Complete Streets Coalition, the rate of injuries equate to a pedestrian being struck by a vehicle approximately every 8 minutes.
If you’ve suffered from a motor vehicle accident, you need the expert advice of motor vehicle accident attorneys such as those at Personal Injury Attorneys PLLC.
