Pedestrian Deaths: Hudson County Ranks In Top 10 Nationally

HUDSON COUNTY, NJ — If you feel like you've been reading a lot of news reports on pedestrian deaths lately, you're not imagining it.

A recent study by a personal injury law firm, Laborde Earles, found that Hudson County, N.J. has had one of the highest rates of pedestrian deaths in the United States.

The firm used data on fatal car crashes from 2017 to 2021, they said. They only looked at counties that had 10 or more car crashes.

Alexandria, Va. was the county with the highest percentage of pedestrian fatalities among car crashes, they said.

Out of the 25 total traffic deaths recorded in the period, 15 were pedestrians, they said.

In New York County (Manhattan), there were 92 pedestrian deaths out of 178 total traffic fatalities. "These figures reflect the significant pedestrian safety challenges in this densely populated urban area," they said.

Essex County, New Jersey, ranked 7th, with 106 pedestrian fatalities, making up 46.29 percent of all traffic deaths.

Hudson County was in 8th place, with 56 pedestrian deaths, accounting for 46.28 percent of the county's traffic fatalities.

In the ninth spot, Union County, New Jersey, had 65 pedestrian deaths, 45.14 percent of its total traffic fatalities.

Bergen County had 79 pedestrian fatalities, which is 44.13 percent of the total traffic deaths.

Attorney Digger Earles said, "Across the country there were more than 32,000 pedestrian deaths from car crashes over the five year period, which is more than 17 people each day."

Hudson County, Jersey City, And Hoboken

Traffic deaths in general hit a 14-year high in New Jersey in 2021, according to federal numbers.

In 2021, Hudson County had a total of 28 fatal crashes, causing 29 deaths. That was up from 24 crashes and the same number of deaths in 2020. And that number was up from 19 crashes and deaths in 2019.

In the five years before that, Hudson County usually vacillated between 21 and 25 fatal accidents.

As for individual towns, Jersey City had 14 fatal crashes in 2021, state statistics said. That was up from 9 in 2020, including the lockdown months.

Vision Zero

Interestingly, Hudson County contains two towns — Hoboken and Jersey City — that have been praised for adopting "Vision Zero" plans to gradually eliminate traffic deaths.

Hoboken recently celebrated seven years without a traffic death. The mile-square city saw no traffic deaths in 2014, one traffic death in each of 2015, 2016, and 2017, and none since. Read more about that here.

See Hudson County traffic fatality statistics here.