Pretty much every arrow seen in the show has a field tip (which is used for target archery) they would be useless as antipersonel weapons as they simply create a hole which is plugged by the shaft.
To give an example, if I were to shoot you with a field tip it would probably hurt like hell, but unless it was a direct shot to.The heart (a fist sized target protected by the ribs which would deflect arrows slightly) however I could keep shooting you with said field tips until I either hit your heart or brain (a headshot still taking ages to kill, same 29th a heart, if it did, plenty of idiots have shot deer with field tips in the head and they walked away until noticed by a park ranger, with an arrow through their head) , or I ran out of ammo.

However a broadhead arrow is effectively a double (or triple, or quadrupole) edged knife blade on a shaft which is designed to fly straight through a person, cutting every blood vessel as it goes, death rapidly occurs due to massive bleeding in the chest area, or the head. Due to the blades being wider/broader than the shaft the shaft can no longer effectively plug the hole and stop bleeding.

Yet I keep seeing arrows in TWD being treated like bullets (which kill mainly through hydrostatic shock and then blood loss) and nearly everyone has target arrows in their bows.

Is this for safety on set or something?

Main reason I ask is because I see so many highly irresponsible and uneducated poachers using target arrows in UK news media. Most are ignorant to the fact that the tips shipped with arrows are for shooting at targets as they have the "it worked on TV" (they aren't the brightest bunch) but showing broadheads would give a sense of realism to anyone who has done archery.


Pic related, a screw in broadhead tip. They don't need to be this fancy though, you can make broadheads easily by hammering spoons flat, cutting them into shape with tin snips, sharpening an edge on either side, hardening by heating and quenching and then using traditional methods to fix to an arrow. I doubt the survivors have a metal spoon shortage.