The number of pedestrians killed by motor vehicles on U.S. roads remains at or near levels not seen in more than a quarter of a century.
A new report released Wednesday calculates that 5984 pedestrians were killed in motor-vehicle crashes in 2017, according to preliminary data. If those numbers hold, they?re essentially unchanged from the 5987 deaths documented one year earlier. Both are the highest numbers recorded since 6482 were killed in 1990, according to federal data.
The deadly figures are the continuation of a decade-long trend, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), which published the report. Over the past decade for which final numbers are available, the number of pedestrian fatalities increased 27 percent. All other traffic deaths fell by 14 percent in the same timeframe, though the overall numbers have been on their own steep climb over the past five years, reaching 37,461 deaths in 2016. Those divergent trends highlight safety gains made by automakers, whose vehicles face more rigorous crash-test scrutiny and are now equipped with more active and passive safety systems, like collision-avoidance warnings. And they highlight the hostile road conditions that vulnerable road users are increasingly facing.

?Two consecutive years of 6000 pedestrian deaths is a red flag for all of us in the traffic safety community,? said Jonathan Adkins, GHSA executive director. ?These levels are no longer a blip, but unfortunately a sustained trend. We can?...