2026-04-09

Chalk Line

The street didn’t kill them by accident. The design did.

Consumer-facing pedestrian and cyclist death accountability — an automated public-interest site that turns federal crash data into city scorecards, road-segment danger maps, SUV/pickup impact analysis, hit-and-run rankings, and brutally clear weekly dispatches explaining which streets keep killing people outside cars, where, and why.

Niche Explored

Consumer-facing pedestrian & cyclist traffic death accountability — turning NHTSA FARS API data into city-level, road-level, and vehicle-type scorecards with weekly data journalism dispatches.

Existing Competition

Smart Growth America “Dangerous by Design” — excellent biennial/annual PDF-based report. Metro rankings, equity analysis. Gap: static, infrequent (not automated), PDF-only, no road-level or vehicle-type analysis, no weekly updates.
IIHS Fatality Statistics (pedestrians page) — comprehensive tables but raw data presentation, no narrative, no city-level scorecards, no design accountability. Updated annually.
GHSA Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities reports — annual estimates with state-level breakdowns. Gap: no city/road-level detail, no vehicle type analysis, no automated updates.
Strong Towns — advocacy-focused, excellent narrative content but not data-journalism or automated scorecards. Manual editorial.
Vision Zero city-specific trackers — scattered, inconsistent, usually maintained by advocates or cities themselves. No national unified view.
No automated, continuously updated, consumer-grade national pedestrian death accountability site exists. The gap is enormous.

Data Sources Found

NHTSA FARS API — https://crashviewer.nhtsa.dot.gov/CrashAPI — FREE, no key required. Crash-level data from 2010+, includes: state, county, city, latitude/longitude, vehicle type, person type (pedestrian/cyclist), time of day, road conditions, speed limit, hit-and-run flag, lighting, weather. CSV/JSON/XML output. Can query by location, vehicle, person, year. Annual file downloads back to 1975.
NHTSA FARS Encyclopedia — https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/ — interactive queries, national statistics, trends tables.
NHTSA FARS Query Tool — https://cdan.dot.gov/query — structured query interface.
IIHS Pedestrian Statistics — https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians — curated analysis with demographic breakdowns.
Smart Growth America Dangerous by Design data — metro area rankings, PDI scores (available in their reports).
US Census TIGER/Line — road geometry, functional classification (arterial vs local), to correlate with crash locations.
BLS/Census population data — for per-capita rate calculations.
FHWA Highway Statistics — VMT by state, road miles, functional system.
OpenStreetMap — road design features (sidewalk presence, lane counts, speed limits, crosswalk presence).

SEO Analysis

Keywords: “pedestrian deaths by city” (medium volume, low competition), “most dangerous roads for pedestrians” (high intent), “cyclist deaths statistics 2025” (seasonal spikes), “hit and run statistics” (consistent), “SUV pedestrian deaths” (rising), “dangerous by design” (branded but growing), “vision zero progress” (niche).
Search volume signals: GHSA page title mentions “Pedestrian Fatalities Fall 11% in First Half of 2025” — massive search interest tied to each annual/semi-annual release. Every major pedestrian death news story drives search.
Long-tail gold: “most dangerous roads for pedestrians in [city]”, “pedestrian death rate [state]”, “SUV vs sedan pedestrian fatality risk”, “hit and run statistics by state”.
Content gap: nobody ranks for city/road-level pedestrian safety scorecards. Google shows only aggregate national stats or individual news stories.

Communities

r/fuckcars — 600K+ members, extremely active, shares urbanist data constantly. Would amplify this content enthusiastically.
r/urbanplanning — 300K+ members, academic/professional audience.
r/notjustbikes — 200K+ inspired by the YouTube channel, Netherlands-obsessed urbanists.
Strong Towns community — engaged membership base, local action-oriented.
Twitter/X urbanist community — @StreetsblogUSA, @AngieShmitt, @baborelup, @StreetsblogNYC — large, vocal, data-hungry audience.
CityNerd YouTube — 500K+ subscribers, data-driven urbanism.
Vision Zero advocacy networks — city-specific, would embed/share local scorecards.

Image/Graphic Feasibility

Maps: excellent — FARS data includes lat/long. Can generate dot-density maps of pedestrian deaths, heatmaps, road-corridor highlighting.
Charts: excellent — trend lines, bar charts by metro area, vehicle type breakdowns, time-of-day wheels, demographic pyramids.
Road design infographics: excellent — compare “stroad” cross-sections vs safe street designs. Can auto-generate with standard SVG templates.
Vehicle front-end profiles: moderate — need pre-built SVG templates for sedan vs SUV vs pickup silhouettes with height comparison graphics.
City scorecards: excellent — dashboard-style cards with grades, trend arrows, comparison stats.
Limitation: Actual street-view or satellite imagery would require Google API costs. Stick to schematic/data-driven graphics.

Key Statistics (for channel proposal)

7,314 pedestrians killed in 2023 (NHTSA FARS)
1,166 cyclists killed in 2023 (NHTSA FARS)
78% increase in pedestrian deaths since 2009 low point
25% of pedestrian deaths are hit-and-run (up from 19% in 2014)
18% of all traffic fatalities are now pedestrians (up from 11% in 2004)
40,901 total traffic fatalities in 2023
GHSA reports 11% pedestrian fatality decline in H1 2025 — but still 3x the 2009 rate
Smart Growth America: Memphis #1 most deadly metro (5.14 per 100k), rate tripled from 2009
61,459 pedestrians killed 2013-2022 vs 45,935 in 2003-2012 (34% increase)
Low-income census tracts have disproportionately higher death rates
Black and Native American pedestrians die at significantly higher rates