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American Indians make up only 6 percent of Arizona's population, but they account for nearly a quarter of the state's pedestrian fatalities, a Arizona Daily Star analysis shows.

There were 837 pedestrians killed in Arizona from 1999 to 2004. Most victims died on municipal streets of Maricopa and Pima counties, home of Phoenix and Tucson. But in Apache, Navajo, Gila and Coconino counties — all predominantly rural and containing reservations — Indians made up 65 percent to 92 percent of pedestrians killed.

When authorities reported victims' alcohol consumption, Indian pedestrians in Arizona had been drinking 88 percent of the time, compared with 41 percent among non-Indians.

Eileen Luna-Firebaugh, associate professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, said people living on reservations often must walk because they can't afford a vehicle and can't find public transportation.

"If you've also got roads that have small shoulders, no sidewalks and no street lights — which is absolutely the case in Indian country — then anyone on that road as a pedestrian is vulnerable," said Luna-Firebaugh, a Choctaw/Cherokee who also is a judge for the Colorado River Indian Tribe.

The Star's findings are consistent with other studies that have found much greater risks for pedestrians on reservations:

● In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported the rate of pedestrian fatalities among Indian children was nearly four times that for other American children.

● Among Indians, 10 times as many pedestrians tested positive for alcohol as the drivers who hit them, according to a 2000 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. For other groups, pedestrians were two to three times as likely to have been drinking as drivers. Since 1982, 48 percent of drivers in fatal crashes on reservations had alcohol in their system; elsewhere the rate was 30 percent.

● New Mexico Department of Health researchers found Indians in the state were eight times as likely as non-Indians to die in pedestrian-vehicle crashes. Indian pedestrians who died had a median blood-alcohol concentration of 0.24 percent — triple the state's intoxication level.

The study, published in 1992 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was prompted by anecdotal evidence of many Indians dying around Gallup and Farmington, said co-author and state epidemiologist Mack Sewell.

The researchers concluded that very high rates of pedestrian fatalities and hypothermia among Indians were likely caused by people traveling off dry reservations to buy alcohol, then trying to walk or hitchhike home when drunk.