Pic taken from roadway.report, an interactive map of all known roadway deaths in the USA.
Fatalities resulting from motor vehicle crashes are the third largest cause of accidental deaths in the United States. On average for 2024 there were over 100 deaths per day on US roads.
that’s crazy to think about, you think of cities being way worse, but I guess it does make sense.
Rural people drive faster, and there are very few pedestrians.
Smaller cities are light on pedestrians and very car focused, meaning those few pedestrians have drivers who are less used to pedestirans, and drivers still drive like they’re on highways.
I was in Albuquerque recently, and I have never felt less safe as a pedestrian. You have people swerving through intersections, being surprised we were walking on the walk signal, upset with us, we had to walk around parked cars, into traffic, it was horrible.
Rural areas also have less well-maintained roads, poorer lighting, and more wildlife that may run into the road, in addition to requiring more driving because everything is further apart.
more likely to have larger cars as well, whereas in cities there’s probably some sort of incentive to having a slightly smaller car for at least some people
Rural areas tend to require 4-wheel drive more often, which tends to be offered more often on SUVs and the like (the added clearance doesn’t hurt). But cars across the board in the US have been getting larger for the last 30 years, to the point it’s even causing problems with road maintenance. The more compact vehicles common in Asian and European cities are often not even sold in the US anymore.
I remember reading an article a while back on how the vast majority of pedestrian deaths - even before accounting for population density - are on rural arterials during the evening and night. Something like 75% or thereabouts.
And to be clear, “rural arterial” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s outside of city limits, it’s a category of road that has no sidewalks, often no streetlights, high throughput, but still has auto-oriented businesses or homes fronting it. A road that was never meant for pedestrians but sometimes people need to walk alongside regardless.
Rural areas tend to also have a lot of bars with parking lots but no sidewalks