We made an episode almost a decade ago called The Perfect Crime.

The idea was that if you wanted to kill someone and not go to prison, the best way would

be to simply run them over with your car.

That's the way it works, especially in America.

If you are driving a car and you kill a pedestrian, even if it's entirely your fault, most likely

nothing very bad will happen to you.

In our legal and transportation systems, the car is supreme and pedestrians don't have much

protection.

Back when we made that episode, I guess we had a slight hope that presenting the data

and discussing the problem might lead to some progress.

It did not.

In 2014, the year we published The Perfect Crime, there were just under 5,000 pedestrian

deaths in the US.

Last year, around 7,500 deaths.

And it's not just the raw numbers increasing.

The rate of pedestrian deaths per mile driven is the highest in more than 40 years.

Even during the pandemic, when driving was way down, pedestrian deaths continued to rise.

Among the world's high-income countries, the US is particularly good at killing pedestrians.

The death rate here is much higher than in places like Northern and Western Europe,

Canada and Japan.

So today, on Frekenomics Radio, we're back at it.

With one simple question, why are we a world leader in this terrible statistic?

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