Fatal Pedestrian Crashes In MA (2022) Report News Coverage

Fatal Pedestrian Crashes In MA (2022) Report News Coverage

We list all media clips on our website, but on this post we consolidated some of the media coverage for the Fatal Pedestrian Crashes in MA (2022) Report. Please let us know if we missed any others that you’ve seen and we can update this post.

Report Overview

In 2022, there were 439 fatal traffic crashes in Massachusetts. After a dip during the first year of the pandemic in 2020, fatal pedestrian crashes in MA returned in 2021 to a level similar to what we’ve seen every year since 2015; this number was over 30% higher in 2022. At least 101 pedestrians lost their lives, accounting for over 23% of the total.

Our state and local leaders can and must take steps to design our streets to be safer for its citizens. We believe that MassDOT should hasten efforts to release an Action Plan based on the Strategic Highway Safety Plan. It is crucial to identify how the safety plan will be implemented. This includes identifying any resources and additional staff that will be required so that the Legislature can appropriately fund the program. In particular, we believe that the first two initiatives, “Implement Speed Management to Realize Safer Speeds” and “Address Top-Risk Locations and Populations” are of particular importance when looking at 2022’s fatal pedestrian crashes.

This report took a closer look at initial crash information made available by MassDOT through the agency’s Interactive Mapping Portal for Analysis and Crash Tracking (IMPACT) portal.

Findings:

  • Of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, 60 had a fatal pedestrian crash in 2022. There were 19 municipalities with multiple fatal crashes, while 10 Gateway Cities had more than one fatal crash.
  • Similar to the concerning trend we found in last year’s report, older adults were hit and killed at a higher rate than those in other age groups: 38.6% of fatal crash victims were over the age of 65, while this segment only represents 17% of the Commonwealth’s total population.1
  • 71% of fatal pedestrian crashes took place in Environmental Justice Census Block Groups. Environmental Justice Population Data is based upon three demographic criteria developed by the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA).
  • More than 60% of the fatal pedestrian crashes occurred in the dark (before sunrise or after sunset). A recent Federal Highway Administration report found that in 2020, 76% of all pedestrian-related fatalities in the United States occurred during periods of darkness.2
  • Ten (9.80%) of the fatal pedestrian crashes were hit and run crashes, in which the driver left the scene of the crash.

Coverage:

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