- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA): Die historischen Statistiken zu tödlichen Fußgängertoten stammen direkt aus dem Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) der NHTSA, das landesweit Verkehrstote erfasst. https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that-work/pedestrian-safety
- Umweltschutzbehörde (EPA): Die historischen Fahrzeuggewichtsdaten und die Marktverlagerung hin zu leichten Lastkraftwagen und SUVs stammen aus dem jährlichen Automotive Trends Report der EPA, der Daten zu jedem neuen leichten Nutzfahrzeug enthält, das seit 1975 produziert wurde. https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report
- Pew-Forschungszentrum: Der zeitliche Verlauf der Einführung von Smartphones und der mobilen Internetnutzung in den Vereinigten Staaten wird durch die National Public Opinion Reference Surveys des Pew Research Center verfolgt. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/01/08/internet-use-smartphone-ownership-digital-divides-in-us/
- Versicherungsinstitut für Straßenverkehrssicherheit (IIHS): Die Sicherheitsanalyse hinsichtlich der Fahrzeugtödlichkeit, der Frontgeometrie (der „Vorderkante“) und des toten Winkels bei Fußgängeraufprall stützt sich auf mehrere IIHS-Studien, einschließlich ihrer spezifischen Analysen der Letalität bei Fußgängerunfällen nach Fahrzeugtyp. https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians
Von jaykrown
45 Kommentare
we couldn’t have a fourth dv scale:
* ice cream sales
and a fifth
* zodiac signs
all mapped to the same y axis?
The vehicle weight correlation is the one that doesn’t get enough attention. People love blaming distracted pedestrians, but the IIHS data on front-end geometry is pretty damning, a higher hood means impact goes to the torso and head instead of the legs, and that’s just physics regardless of who was looking at their phone. Pedestrian deaths were already bottoming out right before smartphone adoption exploded, so the timing there is more complicated than the chart implies at first glance. The red line climbing back up tracks almost perfectly with when trucks and SUVs fully took over the market, which isn’t a coincidence. Would be interesting to see this overlaid with data on miles driven per year and urban vs rural splits, because I’d bet the suburban sprawl / car-dependent infrastructure piece is quietly doing a lot of work here too.
Are pedestrians only hit by suvs and trucks?
Do you have 5 data points in 20 years for fatalities?
Why include truck weight? It seems to have no correlation with the rest of the data.
EDIT: to copy from u/[annastacia94](https://www.reddit.com/user/annastacia94/)
*This is tracking pedestrian deaths specifically. New SUVs and trucks have front end designs that make it super easy for a person to be pulled underneath the vehicle and run over. Sedans and smaller vehicles have lower front profiles that cause people to roll over the top if they are hit.*
I think the data should be looking at SUVs/Trucks as a % of vehicles on the road. The weight doesnt seem to have any measurable impact as deaths drops while weight climbed from 3.6k lbs to 4.6k lbs (1000lbs increase). in the time Deaths have increased weight only changed 200 lbs (4.6 to 4.8k average). Additionally, Sedans also weigh 3-4k lbs. They are just built to a different body profile.
Distracted pedestrians and distracted drivers are both huge factors I would guess.
When did free texting become common?
How about video streaming to phones?
Many new cars have pedestrian detection with automatic braking. I wonder how this will affect the stats in ten years when the tech is widespread.
This looks incredibly damning for drivers on cell phones.
We need stronger protections for that for sure.
The vehicle weight and pedestrian fatality axis scaling should start at zero.
„as you see, smartphones are enabling more deaths to be reported that otherwise we never would have known about.“
-some shill for the american cell phone manufacturers‘ association
Should be hood height instead of weight
Here are some cool personal data points.
* I don’t use my phone while I’m walking out in the street
* I look both ways
* I have yet to be hit by a vehicle
Spread the word because this seems to be repeatable.
Deaths need to be based on total population
[https://aaafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20-1319-AAAFTS_Pedestrian-Fatalities-Brief_FINAL-122220.pdf](https://aaafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20-1319-AAAFTS_Pedestrian-Fatalities-Brief_FINAL-122220.pdf)
Terrible statistics. Can’t look longitudinal trends and imply they are related. Why not plot Netflix subscribers as well? Or gdp?
Can you add a line in there for global warming… and pirates
crazy how there were less smarthphones users in 1980 than in 2010
I would point to this to show there is NO correlation between SUV size and pedestrian deaths. Is that what you’re going for?
This is another good reason to live in cities. In NYC the speed limit for cars in low and there are many walkable, bikeable areas
I think another axis to consider is the ratio of SUVs or “light trucks” on the road rising rapidly since the 80s.
Some trucks are driving over Lamborghinis and Porsches, no wonder people driving them do not see what is in front of car.
I don’t see any real correlation with truck sizes. The cell phones are a dead giveaway though
Lighter SUVs with lower grills would still result in fewer deaths. I’m curious what this graph would look like had phones come first and then weight. Either way, the US feels perfectly engineered to make being a pedestrian as unsafe as possible.
But look at all those deaths before smartphones.
See I think one thing a lot of people miss about this is it’s not just drivers. Pedestrians with headphones one are much more prevalant than back then due to the convenience of having music on your smartphone. Carrying around a discman wasn’t everyone’s jam. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is because everyone is more distracted and lower reaction times and not just drivers.
Why were so many pedestrians killed in the 80’s?
Why does nobody ever want to mention speed limits? Average speed limits on roads are higher as well.
I know this is off topic ish but THANK YOU for not splining your data.
Also: wow this is a hard hitting chart. Nice work.
What a crap graph, you gotta have all axis at 0 else you could make it look like anything you want. Change the weight range for 4500 to 4800 lb and it will look much less clear cut.
Even with the obvious fact that phones contribute to more pedestrian collisions, that does not mean that those collisions are not more deadly with weight of vehicle.
The 2 data points like have a synergistic effect of each other and both should be evaluated for their individual impact on pedestrian collision frequency and deadlines.
Distracted driving < drunk driving <<<<< responsible driving
Graphs with more than one labelled y axes are useless for determining correlation visually. People generally are poor at this when there is only one labelled x and one labelled y axis, let alone when multiple y axis labels are present. Furthermore, the scaling of numbers matters a great deal in the determination of association by eye. In most graphs of this nature, the scaling is conveniently constrained to make the effects look much greater than they ever could possibly be otherwise. I come from a stats heavy field.
It would be interesting to plot data for other countries also. As far as I know, only the US has seen a rise in deaths since 2010 with most other OECD countries either flat or decreasing.
However, other countries do have smartphones as well. And if smartphones are to blame, one would expect all developed countries with smartphones to be affected similarly, no?
So how many deaths are attributed to pedestrians fucking around on their phone while crossing the street rather than paying attention to the road full of giant death machines?
1980 start for truck weight seems like cherry picking.. that was peak oil crisis yea and age of the pool boy truck? trucks prior were heavier on average.
makes for a prettier graph, but honestly shows some disrespect for the viewer. Would have also been interesting to view that decline as a datapoint(s). Also, I dont believe that ‚SUV‘ was even a class in the 1980s.. so also some real weasel data going on here i’m guessing.
It’s a wonder anyone survived the 80s
I like how car weight is just thrown in here as an unrelated independent variable, and we’re supposed to pretend that big cars are to blame.
Are we finally at the point that people can admit that in many cases of things that have gotten worse over the past 15 years, it is, in fact, the phones?
Nearly every time I drive I see some dipshit doing something stupid, and when I pass them I look over and their heads are at a 90° angle pointed straight down. It’s insane. Just full fucking bore driving down the road staring at their laps. I genuinely don’t understand how these people aren’t in accidents daily.
Doesn’t account for number of vehicles. Doesn’t account for increase in population.
Any ideas why it was so high in 1980?
So what’s the reason behind the significant drop from 1980 to 2010?
I know the correlation is not causation… but holy crap does this look damning for phone use while driving. It looks like we need laws for automatic phone lock in carplay mode whenever the user is moving above biking speed… with maybe some carveouts for public transit.
Is the weight for new vehicles produced during that year or for the actual average vehicle on the road?
This is likely a spurious correlation. While distracted driving is a problem, the majority of evidence points to crashes become more fatal rather than more frequent due to larger, heavier cars with higher and higher hood nights.
If it were just cell phones, we’d see this all over the world. Instead, it’s mostly a US-specific problem which reflects US-specific car bloat due to (among other things) fuel efficiency regulations.