Pedestrian deaths in the U.S. 1997 to 2006

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration recently issued a comprehensive report on pedestrian deaths across the United States between 1997 and 2006. It's a follow-up to a 2003 report and takes a deeper look at the available data to try to identify trends.

Among some of the findings:

*Pedestrians have a slightly higher chance of being killed in a car crash than those in a vehicle. For every 100 million miles that people walk, 1.42 pedestrians were killed in vehicle-related crashes between 1997 and 2006. For every 100 million miles that people drive, 1.3 vehicle occupants were killed during the same time-span.

*Motorists failed to stop in 20% of pedestrian deaths.

*About one-third of the pedestrians killed between '97 and '06 were legally drunk.

*"The highest percentage of pedestrian fatalities occurs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., followed by 9 p.m. to midnight," according to the report. Also, autumn months are the most dangerous. The report doesn't say why. Also, bad lighting contributes to more pedestrian deaths than bad weather.

*Overall pedestrian deaths in the U.S. have dropped slightly between 1997 and 2006, although when a crash happened pedestrians had a slightly higher chance of being killed.

*Male pedestrians are more likely to be killed than female pedestrians.

*New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- the nation's most populous cities -- led the nation in pedestrian deaths over the last 10 years. The surprise was Phoenix, which had the fourth-most pedestrian deaths but not as many people living there over the time span studied as did Houston, which had the fifth most deaths. I was in Phoenix and the surrounding suburbs earlier this year for a story on speed enforcement cameras and officials said that historically red-lighting running has been a real problem in the area because of its long, flat and wide roads. 

*The report also has pedestrian death statistics for cities between '97 and '06 -- not easy numbers to come by without doing a lot of digging. The City of L.A. doesn't have numbers for 2007 yet, but the LAPD is going to try to get them for me. In order, here are the numbers for some of the state's largest cities in that span (the report has a year-by-year breakdown):

Los Angeles - 986
San Diego -- 292
San Francisco -- 240
San Jose -- 171
Fresno -- 117
Sacramento -- 111
Long Beach -- 80
Santa Ana -- 75
San Bernardino -- 73
Bakersfield -- 63
Anaheim -- 60
Riverside -- 48
Huntington Beach -- 39
Pomona -- 38
Modesto -- 36
Garden Grove -- 34
Rialto -- 34
Santa Monica -- 34
Chula Vista -- 33
El Cajon -- 31
Compton -- 28
Escondido -- 28
Lancaster -- 27

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: Mark Boster / LAT