Exploring Risk Factors to Disparities in Pedestrian and Bicyclist Fatalities and Serious Injuries
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Summary
This report addresses the persistent health disparities in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries across the United States. Motivated by the Federal Highway Administration’s commitment to achieving zero traffic deaths, the study investigates why certain populations—specifically Black and Indigenous people, individuals with low incomes, older adults, children, people with disabilities, and specific gender groups—are disproportionately affected by road safety outcomes. The authors frame these disparities as preventable health inequities rooted in historical policies, such as redlining and highway construction through minority neighborhoods, as well as contemporary institutional practices that prioritize motor vehicle infrastructure over active transportation. To identify the drivers of these inequities, the researchers conducted a comprehensive scoping review of existing literature and analyzed seven case studies from state, regional, and local agencies. The methodology employed a multidisciplinary approach, integrating frameworks from traffic safety engineering, public health, and social sciences. Specifically, the study utilized the Safe System Approach (SSA) to evaluate infrastructure and human factors, while applying Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) models to understand how structural racism, ableism, and socioeconomic status influence safety outcomes. The literature search was structured in two phases: a systematic review to identify risk factors and a scoping review to map innovative practices. The case studies examined specific initiatives in New York City, Jersey City, Nashville, Buchanan County (Iowa), Minnesota reservations, Los Angeles, and the Twin Cities, focusing on how these entities addressed institutional and infrastructural barriers. The findings identify specific inequitable institutional and infrastructural risk factors contributing to crash disparities across five sociodemographic categories: race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, disability, and sex and gender. The report highlights that historical disinvestment and current "autonormative" design standards create environments where vulnerable road users face higher risks. The case studies demonstrate that effective interventions include community-based participatory research, equitable resource allocation, and targeted infrastructure improvements such as traffic calming on arterials in underserved neighborhoods. For instance, programs like New York City’s Safe Streets for Seniors and Jersey City’s Vision Zero Action Plan illustrate how integrating equity into safety planning can reduce crash risks for marginalized groups. The significance of this work lies in its provision of "proven practices" for transportation professionals to implement equity-informed strategies within the Safe System Approach. The report concludes that achieving zero deaths requires more than technical fixes; it demands addressing the root causes of inequity, such as challenging biases in data collection, shifting decision-making power to communities, and rectifying historic harms. By linking road safety directly to public health and social justice, the study offers a roadmap for agencies to create safe, reliable, and affordable transportation systems for all people, ensuring that safety improvements do not inadvertently perpetuate existing disparities.
Key finding
Inequitable institutional decision-making and infrastructural risk factors, rooted in historical policies like redlining and systemic disinvestment, significantly contribute to disparities in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries across sociodemographic groups.
Methodology
review
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
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| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
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| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | partial | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified_with_issues.
Topics
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- demographic disparities
- cyclist safety
- vru crash typology
- comparative international
- incidence prevalence
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes