An open look at 25 years of people killed on footData Years 2000-2024 · Free to read, cite & share
Arizona · Pedestrian Safety · 2000-2024
Arizona's Pedestrian Toll
What 25 years of Arizona's road deaths actually look like for the people on foot, by the numbers, and what the record says about when the toll broke, when people die, and where the deaths concentrate.
4,409
pedestrians killed walking in Arizona, 2000 to 2024.
FLAT FOR 15 YEARS, THEN NEARLY DOUBLED AFTER 2014. 250 PEDESTRIANS KILLED IN 2024 ALONE (FARS).
Who reads the data
We read the crash record the way we read a case: the road, the numbers, and the pattern underneath them.
AZ Law Now reads Arizona's crash record. We pulled 25 years of federal fatality data and computed the pattern ourselves: how many people died on foot, when the toll broke, how it moved year by year, when they died, and where the deaths concentrate.
It names no one and sells nothing. It just shows the work.
Why this matters now
The state reports one year at a time. We read 25.
Arizona's pedestrian toll held flat for 15 years, then nearly doubled after 2014. The data shows an inflection, not a single bad year, and the yearly headlines miss it entirely.
01
Flat for 15 years, then it nearly doubled
Our analysis
For most of this century, Arizona's pedestrian toll did not move. From 2000 through 2014 it held in a narrow band, around 140 people killed on foot each year. Then it broke.
After 2014 the line bends sharply upward, climbing from 155 in 2015 to a peak of 297 in 2022. Bucket the 25 years into a first five and a last five, and the gap is stark: 695 killed from 2000 to 2004, against 1,289 from 2020 to 2024. That is an 85 percent rise.
Compare the last five years with the first five. The toll rose 85 percent.
2000 to 20042020 to 2024
The toll held flat at roughly 140 per year from 2000 through 2014 (695 in 2000-2004, 707 in 2010-2014). Then it broke: 155 in 2015, 186 in 2016, 213 in 2017, climbing to a peak of 297 in 2022. The last five years of the window ran 85 percent above the first five: 1,289 pedestrians killed from 2020 to 2024 against 695 from 2000 to 2004.
The yearly headlines miss this. Read 25 years at once and the inflection is unmistakable.
Computed from NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024, person-level by year. Peak of 297 is our analysis. The live 2024 investigation cites ADOT for the same year, 263, a different agency's count, which we keep separate.
02
Seven in ten died in the dark
Our analysis
Darkness is the single biggest condition behind these deaths. Of the 4,409 pedestrians killed from 2000 through 2024, 3,191 died in the dark. We computed the light condition on each fatal record.
72.4 percent of pedestrians killed died in darkness. When the sun is down, the walker disappears, and a driver's margin to react collapses.
Killed in the dark72.4% of pedestrians killed
3,191 of 4,409 killed
3,191 of the 4,409 pedestrians killed died in darkness. Most pedestrians killed in Arizona die after dark.
Killed in daylightabout 3 in 10 of pedestrians killed
the minority
Daylight accounts for far fewer of the deaths. The dark majority holds across the full 25-year record, not just one bad year.
Computed from NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024, person-level, from the light condition on each fatal record. Bars scale to the dark share, dark = 100%.
Most pedestrians killed in Arizona die after dark. The live 2024 investigation found the same pattern in a single recent year. Two windows, one finding: if you are on foot in Arizona after dark, the road is far more dangerous than it looks.
03
Most of them died where the lights were on
Our analysis
Of the 3,191 pedestrians killed in darkness, 2,035 died on roads that had streetlights on, against 994 on dark, unlit roads. Most dark deaths happened where the lights were already on.
Computed from NHTSA FARS 2000 to 2024.
Light-condition field: lit roads = FARS code 3 (dark, lighted). Unlit = code 2 (dark, not lighted). Person-level pedestrians killed.
Where the dark deaths happenedSOURCE: NHTSA FARS · 2000 TO 2024 · PERSON-LEVEL · COMPUTED
1Dark, but the streetlights were on2,035 killed
2Dark, unlighted road994 killed
More than twice as many died under working streetlights as died on unlit roads.NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024, person-level
What the lit-road deaths point to Computed
Lighting is necessary. On its own, it is not enough.
It is easy to assume the dark deaths happen on unlit back roads. The record says the opposite.
2,035 pedestrians died in the dark on roads that had streetlights on, more than double the 994 who died on dark, unlit roads. People are dying where a city already spent the money to light the street, which points past the light to the rest of the design.
That gap matters for what a fix looks like. Lit-but-dark deaths point past the streetlight to where the crossing is, how wide the road is, how fast the traffic moves, and whether a walker has anywhere safe to be. A streetlight is not a finish line.
Crossing distancedesign factor
Road widthdesign factor
Traffic speeddesign factor
Where it is safe to walkdesign factor
Lighting presentnecessary, not enough
Lit-road dark deaths2,035 killed
Computed from NHTSA FARS 2000 to 2024, person-level, light-condition and lighting-present fields. Design factors are the documented contributors a streetlight does not address.
04
One road outranks every other
Our analysis
The deaths are not spread evenly, and one road carries more than any other. Across 25 years, Indian School Road through West Phoenix is the deadliest pedestrian corridor in the metro area: 118 pedestrians killed along its length, more than on any other road in Maricopa County.
The deadliest corridor
118
pedestrians killed on Indian School Road through West Phoenix over 25 years, more than on any other road in Maricopa County. This is a corridor problem, not a single-corner problem. The deaths run the length of the road year after year. We name the road and the corridor, not exact cross-streets.
Computed from NHTSA FARS 2000 to 2024, person-level pedestrians killed, by trafficway name. Whole-road count, corridor-level.
A wide, fast, heavily walked arterial
25
years of data, every one of them with pedestrian deaths on this road. Indian School Road crosses West Phoenix neighborhoods that depend on walking. Its toll has run ahead of every other road in the county across the full window. The next-deadliest arterials trail well behind.
NHTSA FARS 2000 to 2024, person-level. Corridor verified against FARS trafficway-name field, 100% populated for this window.
We name the road and the pattern. We do not print exact cross-streets, because at the block level the record is not precise enough to call a single corner as fact.
Indian School Road through West Phoenix is the finding. The corridor is the unit of danger.
05
Nearly six in ten happen in Maricopa County
Our analysis
This is a metro-Phoenix crisis. Of the 4,409 pedestrians killed statewide, 2,598 died in Maricopa County. That is 58.9 percent of the state's total.
Pima County is a distant second. No other county reaches 5 percent.
Pedestrians killed by county ComputedPedestrians killed (person-level) by county, 2000 to 2024
CountyShare of state totalKilledShare
MaricopaPhoenix metro. Nearly six in ten of all Arizona pedestrian deaths.
2,598
58.9%
PimaTucson. A distant second at 15.6 percent.
689
15.6%
Pinal
178
4.0%
CoconinoFlagstaff area
168
3.8%
YavapaiPrescott area
155
3.5%
Maricopa and Pima together carry nearly three-quarters of the state's pedestrian deaths.
Pedestrians killed (person-level), NHTSA FARS 2000 to 2024, by county of death, computed by AZ Law Now. Same measure as the toll: a pedestrian who died, counted by the county where it happened. County FIPS coding is reliable across the full 25-year window.
06
For scale: one in six road deaths is a pedestrian
Our analysis
Set the 4,409 pedestrians killed against every person who died on an Arizona road over the same 25 years, 25,742 people, and pedestrians are one in six of the total, 17.1 percent. The share is the scale, not the alarm. The alarm is the inflection at finding 01: a toll that sat flat for 15 years, then bent sharply upward.
Pedestrian share of all Arizona road deaths ComputedPedestrians killed / all road deaths, 2000 to 2024, person-level
Who diedShare of all road deathsCountShare
Pedestrians killed4,409 of 25,742 Arizona road deaths, 2000 to 2024
4,409
1 in 6
Everyone else killed on the roadThe other five in six Arizona road deaths
21,333
5 in 6
One in six people Arizona loses on the road died on foot.
Computed from NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024. Person-level pedestrians killed divided by all road deaths over the same window. One definition, applied the same way every time.
07
The record at a glance
Killed · 2000-2024
4,409
Pedestrians killed walking in Arizona over 25 years.
Computed from NHTSA FARS
The inflection
+85%
More killed in the last five years vs the first five. Flat for 15 years, then nearly doubled after 2014.
Computed from NHTSA FARS
Died in the dark
72.4%
3,191 of the 4,409 killed died in darkness.
Computed from NHTSA FARS
Share of road deaths
1 in 6
17.1% of all Arizona road deaths over 25 years.
Computed from NHTSA FARS
What this means
Every number points the same way. The toll held flat for 15 years, then nearly doubled after 2014. Most pedestrians die after dark.
Most of those dark deaths happen where the lights were already on. The deaths concentrate in Maricopa County, and within metro Phoenix one road carries more than any other. The pattern points past the walker to the road itself.
Every figure traces to a named government dataset: NHTSA's FARS federal fatality files, 2000 to 2024, for our computed person-level counts. ADOT's 2024 Crash Facts carries the single-year 2024 figure we reference for context.
GHSA carries the national per-capita rank. We read the source, not the news write-up.
We computed the counts
The pedestrian death counts, the year-by-year trend, and all light-condition figures are ours, computed from the FARS record. The whole page is one measure: pedestrians killed is a person-level count, the federal definition of a pedestrian who died, applied the same way for the toll, the dark share, the county concentration, and the deadliest road.
Verified, then flagged
Computations were checked in code against the FARS totals. The queries are validated: running the same method over the prior window returns the previously published figures exactly, which confirms the method is consistent.
The deadliest-corridor figure is the whole-road count of pedestrians killed by FARS trafficway name, 100% populated for this window. We name the road, not exact cross-streets.
A note on what we kept separate
We keep our FARS-computed, person-level counts separate from ADOT's cited 2024 count: two different agencies counting the same roads, and we name the source behind each number rather than merge them. "Pedestrians killed" (4,409 and its derivatives) is person-level throughout this report.
The whole report is person-level: county shares and the corridor figure count pedestrians killed, the same measure as the toll. We did not compute a per-capita rate from FARS, so where we cite Arizona's national rank we attribute it to GHSA and the live 2024 investigation, not to ourselves.
Provenance ledger · every headline number
Measured read directly from a published table.
Computed our calculation from published counts.
Verified confirmed against the named source.
Headline figureProvenanceSource
4,409 pedestrians killed walking in Arizona, 2000 to 2024 (person-level)
Computed
NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024
The toll held flat (~140/yr, 2000-2014), then climbed sharply after 2014 to a peak of 297 in 2022
Computed
NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024 (person-level by year)
+85% rise: 695 killed 2000-2004 vs 1,289 killed 2020-2024
Computed
NHTSA FARS, 2000 to 2024 (person-level by year)
72.4% died in the dark: 3,191 of 4,409 killed
Computed
NHTSA FARS 2000-2024 (light condition, codes 2, 3, 6)
2,035 killed in the dark on roads with streetlights on, 994 on unlit roads