About

About Street Smart

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Street Smart NJ is a public awareness and behavioral change pedestrian safety campaign. Since its creation in 2013, more than 200 communities have participated in Street Smart NJ.
 

Street Smart NJ emphasizes educating drivers and pedestrians through mass media and grassroots outreach, as well as targeted enforcement. Police officers focus on engaging and educating, rather than simply issuing citations. Street Smart NJ complements, but doesn’t replace, other state and local efforts to build safer streets and sidewalks, enforce laws and train better roadway users.
 

The campaign is coordinated by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) and is supported by federal and state funds, with additional funding/in-kind contributions from local partners, including the state’s eight Transportation Management Associations.
 

Communities and organizations everywhere are invited to use the strategies and materials on this website to create their own campaigns

Evaluations are periodically conducted to gauge the effectiveness of Street Smart NJ campaigns.

 

In New Jersey

  • New Jersey’s pedestrian fatality rate in 2021 was 2.29 per 100,000 population, ranking it 17th among all states. However, pedestrians comprised 30 percent of all people killed in fatal crashes, while the national average is 17 percent.
  • In 2021, there were 699 fatalities caused by crashes. This included 212 pedestrians.
  • From 2017 through 2021, 930 pedestrians were killed on the state’s roads. That translates into one death almost every 2 days.

A National Problem

  • 7,388 pedestrians died in traffic crashes in the U.S. in 2021, a 13 percent increase from 2020.
  • Alcohol involvement—for the driver and/or the pedestrian—was reported in 47 percent of all fatal pedestrian crashes in 2020.
  • On average, a pedestrian was killed every 71 minutes and injured every 10 minutes in traffic crashes in 2021.
  • 78 percent of pedestrian fatalities occurred in an urban setting.
  • 15 percent of pedestrian fatalities in 2020 occurred at intersections.
  • 71 percent of the pedestrians killed in traffic crashes in 2020 were male.
  • More pedestrian fatalities occurred in the dark (77 percent) than in daylight (20 percent), dusk (2 percent), and dawn (2 percent).
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration