Children and teens in Georgia had one of the nation’s highest pedestrian death rates from 2020 to 2024, according to a study by a Boston law firm. Georgia ranked ninth among the 50 states.
By the numbers: Georgia averaged 15.8 pedestrian deaths each year among residents ages 5 to 19. That comes to 7.19 deaths per 1 million young residents.
The state has an average of about 2.2 million residents in that age group. Its average yearly death count was the fourth highest in the country, though Georgia ranked ninth after population was considered.
How the ranking works: Breakstone, White & Gluck used federal traffic death records and U.S. Census Bureau population data. Researchers divided each state’s average yearly deaths by its average population ages 5 to 19, then ranked the states by the resulting rate.
The figure of 15.8 is a five-year average.
The comparison: As is often the case, the South came out of this study with a paltry performance. Louisiana had the highest rate at 10.11 deaths per million young residents. Oklahoma ranked just ahead of Georgia at 7.48, while Mississippi followed Georgia at 6.97.
In terms of states with the lowest number of pedestrian fatalaties, Massachusetts recorded 1.48 deaths per million, and New Hampshire recorded 0.88. Alaska, Rhode Island and Vermont recorded no pedestrian deaths in this age group during the five-year period.
B.T. Clark is the Publisher of The Georgia Sun and author of Principles Are Like Pants… You Ought to Have Some. Over two decades in journalism, he has served as Managing Editor of Neighbor Newspapers in metro Atlanta and Digital Director at Times-Journal Inc., earning multiple awards along the way. His work has appeared in newspapers across the state, including The Cherokee Tribune and The Marietta Daily Journal.
- B.T. Clark
- B.T. Clark
- B.T. Clark
- B.T. Clark
