Pedestrian Car Accidents on the Rise in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale
Ft. Lauderdale car accident lawyer Joseph Lipsky reminds everyone living in South Florida that contrary to popular opinion, walking along Florida’s roadways is more dangerous than you think. In fact, the likelihood of being struck by a car as a pedestrian, in what is referred to as a pedestrian accident, is higher in Florida than in anywhere else in America. Incredibly, nearly one-half of the deadliest cities for pedestrians are in Florida. According to a report from the National Complete Streets Coalition, the leaders are Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
When politicians and planning mapped out our state, their desire was for efficient and fast travel. Unfortunately, that quest for speed had the unwanted effect of making pedestrian safety an afterthought. Considering more than 4,000 pedestrians die each year in car accident, a rate of one wrongful death pedestrian car accident every two hours, it is no wonder that pedestrian wrongful deaths from car accidents have actually rise over the past few years, while car accident deaths have actually dropped about six percent in the same time period.
Florida had almost 5,500 pedestrian wrongful deaths in the past decade; a fatality rate of 2.73 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people, which equates to the study’s a Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) of 182.0. The number of car accident versus pedestrian deaths in Florida is significantly higher than the national average of 1.55 per 100,000 and a PDI of 55. We are significantly higher than states with larger populations, including Texas, California and New York.