1 . If you’ve made a routine of a daily walk, congratulations! You’re getting many benefits of a walk. But there’s one simple mistake that could be putting your life at risk. Almost 129,000 pedestrians were injured, and 5,376 were killed in traffic crashes in the United States in 2015, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).     1    .

Luckily, there are some steps you can take to stay safe on foot. Sure, you drive on the right side of the road in the US, but that’s not where you should be as a pedestrian.    2    . Walking on a sidewalk can 100% guarantee your safety. But if you have to stay on the road, the CDC recommends walking toward traffic.

Seems like it couldn’t make much difference.     3    . Simply walking against traffic instead of with it cut the risk of getting hit by a car by an average of 77%, according to the findings.

    4    . Well, if you walk the same direction you’d drive, the cars closest to you are coming from behind. That means you’d need to rely on the driver to see you and react if it’s coming up too closely. If the person behind the wheel is not absorbed, you could end up injured—or worse.

On the other hand, when you’re walking against traffic, you can see the cars heading toward you. Facing those vehicles lets you see danger coming and get out of the way if necessary, and you aren’t putting your life in the hands of every driver who passes.    5    . Or skip the busy streets entirely and learn to “mall walk” in the long corridors of shopping malls.