What share of US pedestrian deaths are men?

Seventy percent. NHTSA records 5,148 of 7,314 pedestrians killed in 2023 as male. The male pedestrian fatality rate was 3.11 per 100,000 population against 1.26 for females, a gap of two and a half times, which already accounts for population size.

If women walk more, why do fewer women die walking?

The most likely explanation is when the walking happens. 77% of US pedestrian deaths in 2023 occurred in the dark, and women walk least after dark. In the 2020 National Health Interview Survey, 13.0% of women said crime makes it unsafe for them to walk, against 8.9% of men, rising to 17.1% among women aged 18 to 24. This is the likeliest explanation rather than a proven one, because crash records count deaths and not walkers, and alcohol involvement and night-shift work also skew male.

What is the mobility of care?

A term introduced by the Spanish planner Ines Sanchez de Madariaga for travel that serves household and caregiving needs: school runs, prescriptions, shopping, checking on relatives, usually several chained into one outing. Travel surveys undercount it because they miss short walking trips and split chained journeys into separate purposes. When surveys are designed to capture it as a category, care travel is roughly a third of all adult trips.

Do women and men walk for different reasons?

The 2017 National Household Travel Survey shows men doing more of their walking as commuting (7.4% of male walking trips are home-based work, against 5.3% for women) and women doing more in the residual "home-based other" category (16.9% against 12.7%). The differences are modest, and the categories themselves are part of the problem, since the trips that are hardest to classify are the ones women make more of.

What did Vienna do about gender and street design?

Under planner Eva Kail, Vienna surveyed who used its streets and what stopped them, then acted in the Mariahilf district between 2002 and 2006: lighting improved in 26 areas that surveys flagged as inducing anxiety, signals re-timed to favor pedestrians, seating added in nine locations, over a kilometer of pavement widened, and five areas made barrier-free. Gender assessment is now required in new Vienna urban development.

Why women walk differently, and why the street data barely records it

Men are 70% of US pedestrian deaths and die at 2.5 times the female rate (NHTSA 2023), yet women walk more. The reconciliation is when the walking happens: 77% of pedestrian deaths are after dark, and after dark is when women walk least. On fear, care trips, and the walking that never enters a dataset.

Free walkability score
Methodology
Insights