Family and personal business accounts for 43 percent of these walking trips, with another 34 percent for social and recreational purposes. Fourteen percent of walking trips involve travel to school or religious activities, while only 7 percent of these trips involves commuting to work. Walking is the second most used mode of travel, so it s clear that at one point in time everyone is a pedestrian. In 1996, there were 5,412 pedestrians killed, and 82,000 pedestrians injured, in traffic crashes. On average, a pedestrian is injured in a traffic crash every 6 minutes and killed in a traffic crash every 97 minutes.
Pedestrian injuries represent the second largest category of motor vehicle-related deaths.
Older adults account for 18 percent of all pedestrian fatalities and 2 percent of all pedestrian injuries. The fatality rate for this group, both males and females, was 3.9 per 100,000 population higher than for any other age group. The intoxication rate for the drivers involved was 12 percent less than half of that for the pedestrians. In 5.3 percent of the crashes, both the driver and the pedestrian were intoxicated. In 1996, the highest rate of intoxication for pedestrians killed in traffic crashes was reported for pedestrians 25 to 34 years old.