Lying or sitting on the road before a crash... ‘Stealth pedestrians’ account for 30.5% of pedestrian fatalities

[Financial News] Three out of every 10 pedestrian fatality accidents on roads without sidewalks involved so-called “stealth pedestrians”—people lying or sitting on the road whom drivers failed to spot in time. The accidents were concentrated on narrow local roads and at night, highlighting the need for extra caution.
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance said on the 2nd that its analysis of automobile insurance claims data and accident dashcam footage from the past five years (2020–2024) found that 32 of the 105 pedestrian fatality accidents on roads without sidewalks, or 30.5%, involved stealth pedestrians.
Among the 32 stealth pedestrian accidents, 24 involved people lying on the road—three times as many as the eight cases involving people sitting on the road. Twenty-four cases, or 75% of the accidents, occurred on roads less than 9 meters wide. In particular, 53.1% occurred on two-way, single-lane local roads where vehicles and pedestrians share the roadway, indicating that narrow roads without separated pedestrian space pose a greater risk.
Nighttime accidents also accounted for a large share. Accidents occurring from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. the following day made up 62.5% of all stealth pedestrian fatality accidents. This was 21.5 percentage points higher than the nighttime share of all pedestrian fatality accidents on roads without sidewalks, which stood at 41%. By time slot, the 7–8 p.m. period accounted for the largest share at 15.6%, followed by 9–10 p.m. at 12.5%.
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance explained that providing sidewalks to physically separate pedestrians from vehicles is the most effective preventive measure. It recommended expanding safety facilities that improve visibility—such as illuminated signs, smart streetlights and protective fences—on local roads where widening is difficult.
It also proposed building smart safety systems equipped with “behavior-recognition AI CCTV,” which detects pedestrians lying or sitting on the road, broadcasts warnings at the scene and sends real-time alerts to control centers.
The Samsung Traffic Safety Research Institute emphasized, “Stealth pedestrian accidents are representative blind-spot accidents caused by a combination of risk factors affecting both drivers and pedestrians when nighttime visibility is poor. We must reduce dangerous blind spots by improving the pedestrian environment on local roads and expanding smart safety facilities.” 

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