CHARLESTON, W.Va – The West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program is urging drivers to pay attention and slow down for pedestrians with October’s Pedestrian Safety Month right around the corner.

Pedestrian Safety Month is organized in partnership with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and is meant to highlight the importance of awareness on the roads.

“Any highway traffic safety month that we have, the ultimate goal is to raise awareness about road safety,” GHSP director Jack McNeely said.

Statistics show that a pedestrian is injured every eight minutes and killed every 72 minutes. More than 68,000 pedestrians were estimated to be injured in 2023, and while West Virginia’s numbers are below the national average, McNeely says they still need to be better.

“In 2024, we had 31 pedestrian fatalities. Of our 260 (traffic fatalities), that’s about 12%. The national average is about 18% pedestrian fatalities, so we’re lower than the national average, but 12% is still a significant portion of our highway fatalities,” he said.

October is a particularly important month for pedestrian safety because of the change in season and the number of pedestrians on the streets around Halloween at the end of the month. McNeely says those are times that it pays to be vigilant.

“77% of the pedestrian fatalities in 2023 occurred in the dark, so with darkness setting in earlier, we have Halloween coming up at the end of the month, October has been set as Pedestrian Safety Month,” he said.

NHTSA provides several recommendations for maintaining pedestrian safety, including using extra caution in hard-to-see conditions, following the speed limit, driving sober, stopping at crosswalks, limiting blind spots, and avoiding passing vehicles at crosswalks.

McNeely believes these are some of the steps that are even more important this time of year.

“With dusk setting in earlier, especially when the time changes the first weekend of November, it’s going to be dark around the time that children go home from school,” he said.

McNeely also encourages pedestrians to be aware of their surroundings and make sure that they are practicing safety while near roadways.