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Comment by stardenburden | Hacker News Reader

Much safer? Only for the person inside the metal box. Pedestrian deatgs have been rising for years now, thanks to bigger and heavier cars.

There has to be some middle ground for safety inside and on the outside.

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I was interested in this and took a look. Pedestrian deaths in the USA are up a bit, up 10% since 2010, from 33k to 36k in 2019. [1] USA population over the same period has increased from about 6%, from ~309M to 329M. So it's definitely a real increase, but 4% adjusted is pretty moderate. More interesting to me is that over longer time periods, the pedestrian fatality rate was much higher, and the recent increase is far below historic averages. Also interesting is the relatively high rate of pedestrian fatalities (27%) are impaired by alcohol. [2] Generally, it's a very safe time to be a pedestrian, but has gotten slightly worse over the last ten years.

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [2] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit...

>4% adjusted

A lot of times false precision bugs me but here I think you are comparing fine differences and need a bit more.

Using your figures, (36/33)/(329/309), I get 2.5%, not 4%.

Yeah well maybe those pesky pedestrians should stop being poor and buy a car. Problem solved

Joe Hockey, is that you?

US car market is a problem.

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