South Florida Injury Lawyers Blog
Earlier this year, the family of a 6-year-old Apopka boy received the news that is a parent’s worst nightmare: Their son had been killed. He had been riding his bike in an Orange County neighborhood one Sunday afternoon in January when a 50-year-old driver struck him. The boy had been riding in the street and then, for reasons unclear, rode out into the street.
Bicycle accident fatalities are a major problem in Florida – and it’s not just children who are losing their lives, though they do account for about a fifth of the total. However, the average age of bicycle crash victims between 2006 and 2015 rose from 41 to 45.
Recent figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicate there were a total of 808 bicycle deaths in 2015, accounting for 2.3 percent of all traffic deaths throughout the year. That’s an 12.3 percent increase over 2014, when there were 726 bicyclists killed, accounting for 2 percent of all traffic deaths. Continue reading →