Pedestrian and Bicyclist Deaths in Arizona: What 2024's Crash Data Shows

Arizona pedestrians and bicyclists paid a disproportionate price on the state's roads in 2024: 263 pedestrians and 44 bicyclists were killed, according to ADOT's 2024 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts report. AZ Crash Data's own look at the underlying crash-level incident records shows a clear pattern behind those numbers: most pedestrian and bicyclist crashes happen in daylight, but it is darkness where the deaths concentrate.

The 2024 numbers

ADOT's annual report puts the pedestrian fatality rate at 12.55% of all pedestrian crashes and the bicyclist fatality rate at 3.19% of all bicyclist crashes for 2024. Combined, pedestrians and bicyclists — grouped as "non-motorists" in crash records — accounted for 307 of Arizona's 1,228 traffic deaths that year, roughly one in four.

That is a modest improvement from 2023, when 317 non-motorists died across 3,292 crashes involving a pedestrian or cyclist, compared with 307 deaths across 3,457 such crashes in 2024. More people were struck in 2024, but a smaller share of them died.

Daylight is common. Darkness is deadly.

AZ Crash Data's analysis of ADOT's incident-level records for 2024 breaks non-motorist crashes down by lighting condition, and the split is stark:

• Daylight: 2,055 crashes (59% of the total) — but only 55 fatalities.
• Dark, lighted roadway: 953 crashes — 151 fatalities.
• Dark, not lighted: 203 crashes — 56 fatalities.
• Dark, lighting unknown: 27 crashes — 17 fatalities.
• Dawn or dusk: 183 crashes — 10 fatalities.

Add the three "dark" categories together and they account for barely a third of non-motorist crashes statewide (1,183 of 3,457) but 224 of the year's 307 non-motorist deaths — about 73%. A pedestrian or cyclist struck after dark in Arizona was, on this data, far more likely to die than one struck in daylight, even though daylight crashes were more than twice as numerous.

Why the gap is so wide

The pattern tracks with what traffic-safety research generally points to: reduced driver reaction time and lower visibility of people outside a vehicle after dark, even on roads with street lighting. "Dark, lighted" crashes alone produced more non-motorist deaths in 2024 (151) than every daylight, dawn, and dusk crash combined (65). Street lighting clearly does not close the gap on its own — dark-but-lighted roads were still where the largest share of pedestrian and cyclist deaths occurred.

Pedestrians accounted for the larger share of non-motorist deaths — 263 of 307 — with bicyclists making up the remaining 44, a split consistent with pedestrians simply being far more numerous in the underlying crash data (2,175 pedestrians involved in 2024 crashes versus 1,393 bicyclists).

About the data

These figures combine two sources: ADOT's published 2024 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts report, which supplies the statewide fatality and injury totals, and AZ Crash Data's own analysis of ADOT's incident- and person-level crash records for 2023 and 2024, which log each crash's lighting condition and the injury outcome for every person involved, including pedestrians and cyclists. Our incident-level totals for 2024 match ADOT's published statewide pedestrian and bicyclist fatality counts exactly, which we treat as a validation check on the underlying data before publishing any analysis built on it.

For the full statewide picture — all crash types, not just those involving pedestrians and cyclists — see our 2024 Arizona Crash Facts breakdown and the 2025 update on when Arizona's fatal crashes happen.

Figures are drawn from ADOT's official Motor Vehicle Crash Facts report and ADOT crash-level incident data. "Non-motorist" figures include pedestrians and pedalcyclists (bicyclists).