February 28, 2019
By Nathan Bomey

U.S. pedestrian deaths hit a 28-year high in 2018, (click here) according to new estimates that suggest the nation's SUV boom is becoming increasingly deadly.

The Governors Highway Safety Association estimated that pedestrian deaths across the nation rose 4 percent to 6,227 last year.

That full-year figure — which is based on a statistical analysis of the first six months of the year — would mark the most pedestrian fatalities since 1990.

The GHSA reported that the number of pedestrian deaths involving SUVs increased by 50 percent from 2013 through 2017, while the number of pedestrian deaths caused by passenger cars increased by 30 percent over that same period. That reflects booming sales of SUVs and the fact that pedestrians are much less likely to survive the impact of an SUV.

It's "clearly a factor," GHSA executive director Jonathan Adkins said in an interview. "We're going in the wrong direction."...