Adults 65 and older are not injured by vehicles at a higher rate than younger pedestrians. They are far more likely to die when it happens, and that gap has barely moved in nearly two decades.
The disparity was laid out in reporting published last week by KFF Health News, drawing on federal crash data. Nearly 8,200 pedestrians 65 or older were injured in 2023, a figure researchers consider an undercount because not every serious crash reaches a police report. More than 1,500 died. The pedestrian death rate for that age group runs above the average for all ages.
