Florida Injury Lawyer Blog
A 3-year-old girl was recently killed in a South Florida pedestrian accident while walking with her mother as they returned from dropping her older brother off at the bus stop. 
According to The Press Republican, the girl, her mother and a neighbor were walking at the intersection of Hampton Meadow Way and Bright Street in Riverview when they were struck by the 33-year-old driver of a pickup truck. The driver said he looked before he turned onto the street, where he saw the two women and the dog. However, he said he did not see the little girl. As soon as he heard the sickening sound of the impact, he immediately stopped and realized he had struck the girl.
The girl’s mother, meanwhile, asserts the driver was operating on the wrong side of the road. Her daughter, she said, was approximately two arm’s lengths ahead of her as they made their way home. The girl had made it nearly to the sidewalk right in front of her home, where she stood waiting for her mother, holding a sippy cup.
The truck, the girl’s mother said, appeared suddenly and was on the opposite side of the road from where he should have been. She didn’t immediately realize how far to the left he was.
The girl was immediately transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The family had just moved to Florida from Pennsylvania.
Florida, sadly, has one of the highest rates of pedestrian accidents in the country.
As of 2015, there were nearly 5,400 pedestrians killed in the U.S., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Pedestrian accidents and bicycle accidents accounted for nearly 18 percent of the 35,000 traffic deaths annually.
On the whole, pedestrians are over-represented when it comes to traffic deaths, though we don’t have an accurate sense of just how many people are walking and for how long.
As reported by The Miami Herald earlier this year, Florida is the most dangerous place for pedestrians in the country. Seven of the top 10 most dangerous metropolitan areas for walking are in Florida. The Dangerous by Design report indicated Cape Coral-Fort Myers was named No. 1 as the most dangerous place, followed by Palm Bay, Orlando, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Lakeland and Tampa-St. Petersburg. That report ranked the 104 biggest metro areas in the country. It is telling that Cape Coral-Fort Myers came out on top. The rankings are based not only the size of the population, but also on the number of people known to commute by foot and also the known number of traffic deaths.
In all of Florida between 2004 and 2014, there were nearly 5,200 people killed by a vehicle while they walked. Just in South Florida, the toll was more than 1,500. Nationally during that time frame, approximately 46,000 lost their lives on foot.
Americans were more than 7 times more likely to be struck and killed by a car while walking than to die in a natural disaster. In fact, more than a dozen pedestrians die every single day in the U.S. after being struck by a car. Older adults and people of color are also over-represented.
If you are injured or a loved one killed in a South Florida pedestrian accident, we can help you explore your legal options for recovering damages.
Call Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner, Attorneys for the Injured, at 1-800-646-1210.
Additional Resources:
Child with local ties dies in Florida accident, Aug. 24, 2017, By Lois Clermont, Press-Republican
More Blog Entries:
Cooperation With Auto Insurer Paramount to Approval of Claims, Aug. 31, 2017, Cape Coral Pedestrian Accident Lawyer Blog
