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Comment by vhcr | Hacker News Reader

Not that vast (in the US).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/1994-_Mo...

Are we looking at the same chart? Other than the recent peak due to loons during COVID, it shows a reduction of almost 50% in per-incident deaths between 1990 and 2010.

Showing per capita deaths coming down from a car-boom peak of 27 in 1969 down to 11 by the 20-teens.

Vastly, vastly, safer.

That's not even getting into how things like energy absorbing bumpers have turned low speed collisions that might have results in injuries 50 or 60 years ago are now non-events. (probably no seat belts, certainly no shoulder belt, and the dash is full of chrome and zero padding)

> Are we looking at the same chart?

Clearly not: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/pedestr...

You understand that only the small blue bars represent pedestrian deaths, the figures are not per capita, and the US population grew by over a third in the covered time span, right?

And again, prior to the covid years the numbers show a DECREASE from 1990 up until 2019.

So, what was the point you were trying to make here exactly?

Typical HN anti-car sentiment without hard grounding in facts.

I just used your source. It's bizarre that they adjust the vehicle stats for population size but not the pedestrian ones.

Regardless, here's a different source, search for "Pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people by age, 1975-2021": https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...

The 2021 death rate is 2.2, that's the same as what it was in 1993. Looks like it's only gotten worse since then too: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians24

The point remains the same, vulnerable road user deaths are the more important statistic and it's not looking good whatsoever.

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