The buzz is steady.

Actually, it’s not a buzz. It’s more of a throaty roar created by the symphony of cars and trucks and other vehicles pacing along Savannah Highway on a February afternoon.

At night, it’s usually replaced by the aggressive pitches of fewer vehicles traveling at a faster rate. It’s still a steady sound, just different.

But the noise went muffled on the night of Feb. 19 and into the predawn hours the following morning.

That’s when the Charleston Police Department’s Major Accident Investigation Team shut down a stretch of Savannah Highway between Magnolia Road and Radio Road for six hours. MAIT was completing its preliminary investigation into a fatal collision involving a pedestrian and a motor vehicle. It was the most recent and third such incident in Charleston this year. In 2022, only four people were killed by vehicles. This year, Charleston is on a path to top the high of seven pedestrian deaths in 2021.

It’s not a trend exclusive to Charleston.

The Governors Highway Safety Association will release a report on Feb. 28 that safety officials expect to further drive home a troubling fact — more and more pedestrians are dying alongside American roadways. Communities across the country have already seen spikes in pedestrian deaths in recent years. The GHSA’s most recent full-year report showed that drivers struck and killed 7,845 people in 2021 — an average of 20 deaths per day. It was also an 11.5-percent increase from the year before, and the most recorded in a single year in four decades.

But the Palmetto State, at least until recently, has been an outlier from the pack. The S.C. Department of Transportation said 167 pedestrians were killed along Palmetto State roadways last year, down from 188 in 2021.

Still the numbers are glaring considering South Carolina reported only 100 pedestrian fatalities in 2013. Overall, pedestrian deaths are increasing faster nationally than all other traffic fatalities, surging 54 percent from 2010-20. GHSA officials anticipate the next batch of numbers will again move in a troubling direction.

That’s the case for Charleston already in 2023.

The calendar has yet to flip to March but community leaders, business owners and residents can’t help but notice the rise in pedestrian deaths. The three fatalities this year are especially glaring considering there weren’t any at this time in 2022.

“What’s the solution?” said Adam Goodwin, owner of Charles Towne Fermentory off Savannah Highway. His brewery sits only a few dozen paces from the Feb. 19 pedestrianrelated fatality. “That’s the million-dollar question, right?”

It is indeed a tough code to crack. Its complexity is compounded because there is rarely a common element that binds one incident to another, other than someone died after being struck by a vehicle. Safety experts and government officials agree that trying to attribute one factor to each individual case is a fool’s errand, as the conditions are as different as victims’ names.

Consider the varying circumstances of the three Charleston fatalities in 2023:

• Karen Simmons, 58 of Charleston, was struck and killed at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 3 by a car traveling south on East Bay Street near South Street. Simmons, who was in a wheelchair, was attempting to cross a dark section of the road without a marked crosswalk. Charleston police said the driver — an unidentified Mount Pleasant woman — remained at the scene, cooperated with investigators and showed no signs of impairment. No charges were filed.

• Gregory Liles, 65, of Charleston died after being struck by a car at 6:15 a.m. on Feb. 3. Liles was attempting to cross the south side of Spring Street without using a crosswalk under conditions described by Charleston Police Department as “wet and lighting was dark.” The driver of the vehicle showed no signs of impairment and no charges were filed, though the investigation is ongoing.

• Todd Homicki, 45, of Charleston, died Feb. 19 while trying to cross Savannah Highway at an intersection near Magnolia Road around 9:45 p.m. Police said Homicki was hit by a car traveling south on Savannah Highway before the vehicle hit a tree and rolled over. The driver of the vehicle and two passengers were transported to an area hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Homicki was declared dead at the scene. No charges have been filed and the investigation is underway.

Then there is the incident that claimed the life of 43-year-old Drew Holler of Summerville.

Holler was struck by a Jeep SUV shortly before 2 a.m. Feb. 12 when he stopped to assist a disabled motorist in the median of the road near 888 College Park Road in Berkeley County. Holler died at the scene, the fourth pedestrian killed in Berkeley County this year. His death is being investigated by the South Carolina Highway Patrol.

The incidents are different, each unique in its own way, but with the common factor being death. Still, all checked off one or more frequent causes.

Adam Snider, director of communications for the GHSA, says the reasons can range from dangerous driving (such as speeding), driving while impaired and distracted driving. But that’s making the blame game one-sided when there are multiple parties involved — the pedestrian as well as the driver and the various levels of government.

Some places in the U.S. simply don’t have the infrastructure to provide safer pathways in the form of crosswalks, wider sidewalks or sidewalks where there aren’t any. The same is true with proper lighting for motorists and pedestrians. And roadway builders are increasingly more focused on moving as many vehicles along as swiftly as possible than accommodating pedestrian traffic Providing those assets can be tricky, both in funding and working within the confines of sometimes antiquated infrastructure. The U.S.

Department of Transportation released $800 million in grants earlier this month with its Safe Streets for All program. It’s an initiative to fund municipal-level projects to improve road safety and traffic infrastructure with the hope creating safer communities for pedestrians.

But, of course, all of that can still be ineffective if individuals don’t take advantage and maybe go the extra distance to get to a crosswalk or, as simple as it sounds, look both ways before crossing.

“It’s (on) everyone; we all need to do everything,” Snider said. “Responsibility is shared and everyone needs to understand the role they play, whether it’s the driver behind the wheel or the pedestrian stepping into a crosswalk. We all have a role to play to make it safe for people to walk.”

Still, accidents can and will happen. And Goodwin has been pondering that million-dollar question he posed earlier as to how to stop them since he set up shop in December 2016.

The windows at Charles Towne Fermentory — an 8-year-old brewery adjacent to Savannah Highway — were open, exposing the depths of the business and the patrons inside to that guttural noise and an unseasonably warm breeze. People come and go, some stay longer than others, but that background noise remains.

It’s not so loud as to drown out Goodwin’s words or thoughts, however. Maybe it’s because he’s grown used to it. Goodwin efficiently communicates over it all without having to raise his voice or use any wild hand gestures.

So did he have any reservations about setting up his brewery in the burgeoning Avondale district despite the inherent risks? “Yes and no,” Goodwin said. “I’d heard stories even back then of pedestrians getting hit by vehicles. That’s, unfortunately, something that will happen when you have a highly trafficked area of walkers and very fast cars, maybe not very wide sidewalks and old infrastructure that needs updating to keep up with the evolution of the neighborhood.”

But what about that million-dollar question? How do you stop the pedestrian deaths?

“You’re asking a brewery owner, man,” Goodwin said. “... I don’t know.”