Early traffic laws were actually created in response to child pedestrian deaths (7000 in 1925).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-06-10/how-citie...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-06-10/how-citie...
The introduction of the automobile kicked all of these use cases off of the roads. While pedestrians have the right of way, the roads henceforth belonged to the "devil wagons".
We also started to shift blame over to pedestrians for jaywalking. They no longer own the roads.