If you were to draw a graph of pedestrian deaths in America, you'd see a line that began to dip slowly in the late 1970s.

That line would trend downward at a steady pace until roughly 10 years ago.

And then it would go the other way, telling a story about pedestrians and how they

died. Those fatalities fell for about 40 years and rose for the last 10. That's Jesse Singer,

a journalist, and the author of the book, There Are No Accidents. And what happened in that last decade?

What happened in the last decade is a few things.

In general, pedestrians die because they're exposed to dangerous conditions,

namely two dangerous conditions.

Wide fast streets with a lot of traffic that are unsafe for walking,

but where people need to walk nonetheless.

And the growing size of vehicles.

More people are driving SUVs and pickup trucks, fewer are driving sedans,

and those vehicles are growing every year in weight and footprint.

But big picture, though, it's important to note.

Pedestrian fatalities have been rising a decade, but roads haven't changed that much in that time.

Two things have. The vehicles are getting

bigger, and we're more likely to live in those places with the most dangerous roads.

In 2022, pedestrian deaths hit a 40-year high, 7,508 people. Jesse's work is all about why.

She looks at the size of cars, the suburbanization of poverty, and the environmental factors

that are creating this crisis.

But she also looks at our mentality, the way we see these deaths as tragic individual stories, not part of

something larger.

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