pedestrian accident

Published on: May 9, 2017

GHSA: U.S. Pedestrian Accident Deaths Up 25 Percent

A 15-year-old Timber Creek High School student was killed in a hit-and-run pedestrian accident after he was struck by a motorcyclist who fled the scene near Avalon Park Boulevard and Pellicer Drive in east Orange County. The teen was reportedly skateboarding in the street with friends when the motorcyclist, later identified as a 35-year-old man who was allegedly drunk at the time of the crash and fled on foot. The Orlando Sentinel reports police found him hiding in a nearby backyard and arrested him.

Pedestrian accidents are an all-too-common problem in Orlando and throughout Florida, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of serious injuries every year. According to a new analysis from the Governors Highway Safety Association, it’s getting worse – both in the Sunshine State and across the nation.

The GHSA’s Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State, using 2016 preliminary data, reveals a 25 percent increase in pedestrian accident fatalities in the U.S. between 2010 and 2015. Early figures from 2016 show the number of pedestrians killed in 2016 increased by 11 percent, as compared with those who died in 2015 crashes. That is the largest yearly increase in both the number and percentage of pedestrian accident deaths in four decades – since national records have been kept. Continue reading →

Published on: April 5, 2017

Report: Central Florida Pedestrian Accident Deaths Rise

By Dean Freeman

Pedestrian deaths in Central Florida are rising at an alarming pace. The Orlando Sentinel recently reported there have been two dozen people killed in Orange, Osceola, Lake and Seminole counties just so far this year.

That’s six more than compared to this same time last year, when there were 18 – a 33 percent increase.

This is seemingly a troubling continuation of a trend reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), wherein the number of pedestrians killed in traffic crashes rose 9.5 percent from 2014 to 2015, reaching 5,376 that year. This figure, the most recent for national statistics, is the highest its been in two decades. Continue reading →

Published on: May 10, 2015

UIM Policy for Pedestrians in Back-over Accident Offset by Driver’s Insurance

By Dean Freeman

A husband and wife out for a leisurely stroll in their neighborhood would never return home the same again. It was a summer day in Maryland in 2009. As they passed a residential driveway, a driver in his 20s backed out of the driveway without looking.

In so doing, the driver struck the couple. The wife screamed and, as she would later allege in her complaint, hit the vehicle with her hand to alert the driver and make it stop. She reportedly then made eye contact with the driver, who stopped momentarily and then nevertheless seeing what had happened, continued moving his car, backing over her husband in an attempt to flee the scene.

Both husband and wife sustained serious injuries, though the husband had the worst of it. His injuries included a traumatic brain injury and other severe head injuries, as well as injuries to his neck, body and limbs. He was transported to a local hospital and then, later to a rehabilitation center, where he died two years later.

Continue reading →