Statistics Continue to Show Florida Has a Major Bicycle Safety Problem
March was Florida Bicycle Safety Month and a number of safety initiatives went on across the state of Florida at the state, county and local level. Bicycling in Florida is and always has been an extremely hazardous pursuit, even more so than in many other parts (or really any other part) of the country. Florida always has had one of the highest death rates for bicyclists of any state in the nation. According to recent surveys, Florida has had the highest per-capita death rate for cyclists of any state in the country in the past several years. Despite safety initiatives like Florida Bicycle Safety Month and the events took place around the state in an attempt to make Florida’s road safer for cyclists, as well as an overall reduction in overall traffic deaths throughout the state, bicyclist fatalities have increased year over year across the state as well as in most of the state’s larger metropolitan areas. Therefore, for cyclists on the road in Florida, exercising caution is of paramount importance, given that you cannot count on the motorists you may be sharing the road with to take the necessary precautions to ensure your safety, even despite initiatives like Florida Bicycle Safety Month.
Lee County: A Microcosm of the Problems for Bikers in Florida as a Whole
Lee County serves as a perfect example of the problems faced by cyclists in Florida. Even though Lee County is one of the smaller counties in Florida population-wise, according to a reportfrom the Fort Myers News-Press, the statistics for 2019 (which is not even one-third over) are on pace to exceed the number of both pedestrian and cyclist deaths in that county in 2018. As of the March 14threport, there had been 28 traffic fatalities, including seven pedestrians and four bicyclists, in 2019 already. This was nearly a third of the 92 traffic-related fatalities reported in Lee County in all of 2018.
A study released in January 2019 similarly showed that Florida was the most dangerous state in the country for bicyclists and pedestrians and that the Fort Myers-Cape Coral metropolitan area in Lee County was among the ten most dangerous areas in the country for bicyclists and pedestrians. A previous report had ranked the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area as the most dangerous in the country for pedestrians and bicyclists from the years 2005-2014. The January 2019 study showed that, even though the overall number of traffic deaths in the Sunshine State had decreased from 3,114 in 2017 to 3,004 in 2018, the number of bicyclists killed in the state had increased from 128 to 140 over that same period. This is clearly a sign that, although the roads of Florida may be getting safer for motorists generally, bicyclists are not enjoying a similar effect.
Contact the Experienced Personal Injury Attorneys of Schwed, Adams & McGinley if You Have Been Injured in a Bicycle Accident in Florida
As reflected in both the broader statistics regarding the dangerousness of biking in Florida across the state as a whole, in addition to the individual statistics for Lee County, biking is truly a dangerous pursuit in Florida. Collisions involving motor vehicles and cyclists often can result in critical injuries or death, particularly for the cyclists unlucky enough to be involved in these crashes. Florida drivers often fail to do their part to follow their obligations under Florida law to ensure the safety of everyone sharing the road. To make matters worse, law enforcement often is not as aggressive in enforcing laws to protect bicyclists as to they could be.
If you are a cyclist and you have been involved in a motor vehicle accident in Florida, you will need an experienced personal injury attorney who has represented cyclists who have been injured by Florida motorists in the past to help you to recover maximum damages for your injuries. Contact the experienced personal injury attorneys at the law firm of Schwed, Adams & McGinley, P.A. today. We have achieved great success in representing clients in collisions between bicycles and motor vehicles and other situations in which our clients were riding a bike and were injured, during our attorneys’ 150 combined years practicing law. Contact us today at (877) 694-6079 or contact@schwedlawfirm.com for a free consultation regarding you