Articles Posted in Pedestrian Accidents

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.

Over the past few years, especially with the increasing use of cellphones to text, email and talk by drivers of  moving cars, Ft. Lauderdale car accident lawyer Joseph Lipsky has seen a drastic rise in the number of pedestrians who are struck by cars and seriously injured. This rise in pedestrian accidents throughout Florida, including Miami and Plantation, shows the immediate need for technological advances in vehicle systems which can save drivers from their own carelessness, and in turn save innocent pedestrians.

While nearly eighty percent of all vehicles sold in American over the past year have come equipped with some type of installed accident avoidance or notification systems, such as lane departure alarms and automatic braking on highway systems, that technology is really only designed to protect vehicle occupants from being injured in a car accident. Current systems are woefully inadequate at providing similar accident avoidance technology when it comes to pedestrians and bicycle riders.  Thankfully, manufacturers are finally taking steps to equip cars and trucks with pedestrian accident avoidance systems too.

Although not yet in use in the United States, in Europe, where government regulation is more strict, certain manufacturers are already placing systems which can detect and brake for pedestrians and bike riders who a vehicle senses within 20 yards of a vehicle. The systems claim to be able to enact emergency car accident avoidance in less time than a human can blink his eyes.

Recently Fort Lauderdale car accident attorney Joseph Lipsky read a new study from the Institute for Highway Safety which revealed that the number of pedestrians hit and killed in car accidents across America grew to thirty-year high. Having helped the families of too many Floridians who’ve lost loved ones in car accident, the study’s findings sadly come as no surprise.

The IIHS studied car accidents which resulted in wrongful deaths of pedestrians so try to ascertain the reasons behind the shocking annual increase. The study confirmed that nearly six thousand pedestrians were killed in car accident in 2016, which was the largest number of pedestrian traffic deaths in thirty years. Incredibly the nearly fifty percent increase in pedestrian traffic deaths is significantly greater than the number of all traffic wrongful deaths over the same period, when that number rose eleven percent.

A predominant factor in the majority of pedestrian traffic deaths is the time of day pedestrians are likely to be hit by a vehicle. The greatest number of car accidents resulting in a pedestrian’s death happened during the evening, when 4,500 pedestrians died during the time period from 2009 through 2016, this was an increase of more than fifty percent. The number of pedestrian deaths during daytime hours was more than two-thirds less, at 1,300.00. With many of the traffic deaths occurring in residential neighborhoods with fewer designated crosswalks, the Institute found that higher speed limits in many municipalities results to more fatalities when a vehicle strikes a pedestrian.

Here we go again, another “honor” for the State of Florida. According to a recent study, titled Dangerous By Design, seven of the top most deadly cities in America for pedestrians car accidents are in, you guessed it, Florida. As a Florida personal injury attorney for more than 25 years, Joseph Lipsky, knows too well, having helped dozens of pedestrians seriously injured in accident involving cars or truck, of the dangers pedestrians face when walking along or nearly Florida’s roadways.

The Dangerous by Design study came up with their so-called Pedestrian Danger Index, which is an analytical evaluation of the number of pedestrians who walk to work, and compared it to the number of car accidents in which pedestrians were seriously injured or killed. Nearly 5000 pedestrians were killed in car accidents or truck accidents over the past year, an alarming nationwide rate of 13 wrongful death victims every day. On average, a pedestrian is killed every two hours and injured every seven minutes in a traffic crash. Fourteen percent of all traffic fatalities and an estimated 3 percent of those injured in traffic crashes were pedestrians. To say that the ongoing rise in pedestrian deaths is an epidemic is clearly an understatement. Also of great concern is the fact that although minorities make up only about 1/3^rd of the population, nearly 50% of all pedestrian deaths involve a minority. And as expected, the study confirms that those pedestrians 65 and older are fifty percent more likely to be killed by a car or truck.

While much of the blame for pedestrian wrongful deaths is squarely upon the shoulders of the drivers who hit them, the study found that engineers who are responsible for designing streets and sidewalks are also to blame, as they failed to take adequate preventative safety measures to protect pedestrians. Some of the features roadway designers routinely overlook include, wider medians, which allow pedestrians to safely avoid traffic, if they get stuck in the middle of a roadway; more marked crosswalks; and lowering roadway traffic speeds in areas know to have significant pedestrian traffic.

Florida wins again, but again this definitely not good news to pedestrians. According to a recent study, Florida has the honor of having the greatest rate of pedestrian wrongful deaths from car accidents in America.  Incredibly, pedestrians in Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines and Parkland are four times more likely to die in a car accident than in places like Boston or even New York. And while the study blames pedestrians for being distracted by their phones, being intoxicated and crossing outside of marked crosswalks, more attention is being placed upon the roadways themselves.

Florida’s older roadways, which were not designed for active populations, often times play an integral role in pedestrian accidents. Specifically, pedestrian friendly sidewalks and crosswalks are lacking along many roadways which are shared with cars driving at what used to be considered as highway speeds. Pedestrians seeking to cross roadways usually have to walk great distances to access a crosswalk, often 1000 feet away.  While common sense should cause pedestrians to use those crosswalks, most people cross where they are, rather than walking 1000 feet out of their way.

Those of us who live in more westerly cities, which were originally built decades ago when most of the land was agricultural, know that many roads were built without any adjoining sidewalks. Now as the population has shifted towards the suburbs, many residents now confront dangerous roadway conditions on a daily basis. The Florida Department of Transportation has begun to address our outdated roadways but taking efforts to reduce driver speeds, such as by making narrower vehicle lanes and placing trees closer to the roadways.

In addition to the well-known dangers associated with distracted driving, Miami car accident lawyer Joseph Lipsky wants to pedestrians to be aware of an ever increasing problem; how pedestrians who are distracted while walking, especially along Miami’s busy roadways, are finding themselves in increasingly dangerous positions. Using a cell phone while crossing U.S. 1 or Flagler Street while texting is a distraction which can cause pedestrians to walk right into the path of a vehicle and become serious injured in a car accident.

Our roads in Miami and Fort Lauderdale continually make the dubious list of the American’s most dangerous roads for pedestrians. A recent report listed the Palm Beach, Broward, Miami tri-county area as our country’s 4th most dangerous area for pedestrians accidents, with nearly three times the national average for car accidents with pedestrians.

The report also showed that with similar pedestrian dangers in Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, that Florida is the most dangerous state for pedestrians. Not surprisingly, elderly and young children are involved in the majority of pedestrian car accidents. And of that group, the elderly are the victims of more wrongful deaths due primarily to their fragility. Despite these know findings, Miami’s own public works department found that through Miami Dade County, higher curbs, mis-leved sidewalks and the lack of crosswalks are a prevalent problem for our ever increasing elderly population.