Pedestrian Accident

A recent editorial published in the Orlando Sentinel caught the eye of Orlando personal injury attorney James O. Cunningham recently and resonated so strongly in him that he wanted to share it with his readers. The editorial was written by a local bicyclist named David Moran, who was inspired to craft his opinion after a recent well-publicized bicycle accident where a bicyclist was struck and killed by a fire truck. An excerpt from Mr. Moran’s editorial included the following:

Sadly, I have been honked at, run off the road, and even hit by a car on my bike. Drivers don’t realize they are supposed to share the road. Until I started bicycling, I was pretty ignorant to this as well, and used to get very frustrated with people biking on the road when I drove.

I was taking the bus home from the University of Central Florida that night on Link 13, which goes by the emergency room, and we had to go a different route because of the accident. The news really hit home with me.

I travel to work and grad school at UCF via LYNX, biking and walking. Every day I fear for my life because people see nondrivers as an inconvenience who are in the way. I have had many close calls because everyone is in such a rush. I sometimes just want to yell, “Slow the heck down!”

When I was hit by a car on my bike, the woman got out of her car and, before even talking to me, she inspected her car for damage. She did not apologize, and told me that I should have not been in the road. Unfortunately, the stretch of Corrine and Virginia drive that goes through Audubon Park does not have a bike path, so I have to bike in the street with cars. I called the police to report the incident, but they were occupied with other emergencies; after waiting 45 minutes, I gave up and proceeded to an appointment for which the accident had made me late.

The driver didn’t understand that she was supposed to share the road, and when she tried to pass me her passenger-side mirror hit me.

It amazed me how she lost her sense of humanity behind the wheel. She forgot my flesh and bones on a little bike was no match for her mass of metal, glass and rubber. That is the sad part about suburbia — everyone is isolated and disconnected. We hide from the world and each other through our cars denying us a true sense of community. When I ride the bus or walk or bike, I am amongst people. I see suffering. I see people who are different from me and it keeps me in tune with reality. The automobile-centric, social nature of sprawling cities like Orlando encourages apathy and avoidance.

The Bible story of the Good Samaritan comes to mind when I think about the current situation of our country and the disconnect between the haves and have-nots. It seems like everyone is crossing to the other side of the road and passing people by or tragically running right over them in some cases.
This has to change or we will continue to have tragedies such as this accident. Central Floridians need to be more mindful of pedestrian and bicyclist rights.

Local government also needs to stop making it so convenient for cars to rule the roost and get away with it. Going without a car in Orlando should not be the poor person’s plight; it should be a lifestyle that is supported and celebrated. Especially with the coming of SunRail, we need to challenge ourselves as a community to drive less and value other alternative modes of transportation more.

More bus routes, fewer parking lots. More biking trails, fewer strip malls. More crosswalks, fewer lane expansions. More late-night, public transportation alternatives, less drinking and driving. More carpooling, lower gas costs. More commuter rail, less of a carbon footprint. More community, fewer distracted, disconnected drivers.

Instead of allowing cars to define us, and roads to divide us, I hope we can strive for a new sense of connectedness that makes Orlando a safe and humane place to commute for everyone, not just some of us.

James O. Cunningham would like to thank Mr. Moran for making his case so eloquently and reminding drivers about operating their vehicles in a safe and conscientious manner. Sadly, there are too many drivers on Florida roadways who don’t put safety above all other considerations, and this is exemplified by our awful pedestrian and bicycle accident rates. If you have been struck by a vehicle while walking or biking and would like to speak with an Orlando personal injury lawyer, call Mr. Cunningham today at 888-425-2004 or 407-425-2000 to schedule a free consultation.

An Orange County crossing guard was struck by a car and injured one recent morning while on the job at 39th Street and Orange Blossom Trail. Florida Highway Patrol officers investigating the incident say that the accident occurred on the morning of October 25 when the 60-year-old crossing guard was struck and injured by a car driven by a 24-year-old Orlando man who was making a left turn onto Orange Blossom Trail. Officers say children were crossing the street when the accident occurred, and witnesses say that when the woman saw the car heading toward the crosswalk, she put up her hands to protect the children. She fell to the pavement after impact and was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center for treatment for undisclosed injuries. Charges are pending against the driver of the car.

Orlando personal injury lawyer James O. Cunningham would like to remind Central Florida drivers to exercise extra care while driving in and near school zones. As you know, our area is the country’s most dangerous place for pedestrians and bicycle riders, and Orlando pedestrian accidents continue to change the lives of victims and their friends and family members nearly every day. Mr. Cunningham has some very simple tips that can help area drivers lower the number of bike and pedestrian accidents in our area:

• Slow down
  Many pedestrian accidents are caused by drivers who speed. The extra seconds that drivers think they need to get to their destination as quickly as possible are trivial and hardly worth endangering anyone who might be walking or biking along the road.
• Hang up and drive
  Florida may not have a cell phone ban for drivers, but that doesn’t mean that drivers should talk and/or text while behind the wheel. It’s dangerous, reckless, negligent and a recipe for tragedy. Please hang up and focus your attention on the safe operation of your vehicle.
• Leave early
  Leaving just five minutes earlier on your way to work or another destination will give you all the extra time you need to get there on time. We tell ourselves that we’re busy and that there aren’t enough hours in the day, but there are. Do everyone a favor, and leave a bit early to make our roads safer.
• Share the road
  Streets and highways in the Orlando area may be built for automobiles, but bicyclists have just as much right to the road as drivers do. Also, pedestrians crossing the road at marked crosswalks have the right of way and just as much right to use the road as drivers do.

If you or a member of your family has been struck and injured by an automobile while walking or bicycling, you may be entitled to compensation. For more information about your legal options and Florida laws, call Orlando personal injury attorney James O. Cunningham today at 888-425-2004 or 407-425-2000 to schedule a free consultation.

An article published recently in The New York Times regarding the Orlando metropolitan area’s ignominious ranking as the most dangerous place in the country for pedestrians comes as no surprise to Orlando personal injury lawyer James O. Cunningham. It comes as no surprise to the millions of others who live in the Orlando area either. Transportation for America, a non-profit safety advocacy organization, conducted a recent survey that led to the article. They found that Orlando-Kissimmee ranked first out of 52 metro areas in the country for pedestrians killed by motor vehicles, with more than 550 people killed in pedestrian accidents from 2000 to 2009. The survey found that the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area ranked second, followed by Jacksonville and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, respectively.

“So much of Florida has been built up so quickly in that era of the automobile-oriented design; it’s this sort of boomer phenomenon,” said David Goldberg, communications director for the organization. “The tendency there has been to build the big wide arterials; you have these long superblocks, and you can get up to a good speed.”

Transportation for America’s study of our pedestrian accident problem, called “Dangerous by Design,” was published last May. Researchers found that our area’s Hispanic and African-American residents, who also happen to be the least likely to own their own automobiles, suffered the highest pedestrian fatality rates. They also found that people who ride area buses were especially vulnerable to being struck and injured or killed by cars, as they must cross wide area roadways with heavy vehicular traffic moving at high rates of speed.

The article spoke with an area resident who had just dashed across the six lanes of Semoran Boulevard with bags of groceries from a nearby food bank. The posted speed limit on this road is 45 miles per hour, but traffic frequently moves at speeds of 60 or more mph.

“You’ve got to walk fast, you can’t talk and you keep your eye on the road,” she said. “There are no lights, no crosswalks and the bus stop is in the middle here. Oh my God, the traffic here,” she said. “People have no courtesy, no patience for human beings, no respect.”

A reporter spoke with another woman nearby who also bolted across Semoran Boulevard with her two daughters. “Every day I do this,” she said. “Of course, I’m afraid. We all link arms and cross as quickly as possible. Drivers see you coming here and they speed up.”

Orlando officials have taken notice of the area’s pedestrian accident problems and are working to make our area safer. Readers of this blog may recall a post a few months back about new sidewalks planned for the area and other plans to reduce the number of pedestrians and bicyclists struck by vehicles.

“We are trying to change the culture and this thinking that is car-centric,” said Frank Consoli, Orlando’s traffic operations engineer. “Any death is too many. We don’t want to see that. We don’t want Orlando also to get a reputation that we have problems here. We want to make it as safe as possible.”

Orlando personal injury attorney James O. Cunningham wholeheartedly supports anything that reduces the number of people struck and injured or killed by automobiles in our area and has seen drivers speed up to intimidate pedestrians on many occasions. Speeding up to scare people walking or riding their bikes is the epitome of negligent behavior. If you or someone in your family has been struck and injured or killed in a pedestrian accident, call 407-425-2000 or 888-425-2004 today to schedule a free consultation to discuss your case. Please practice extra care when walking along or crossing area roadways.

Orlando personal injury attorneys, public safety officials, Central Florida law enforcement agencies and many others are very excited about a new way to teach children about pedestrian safety. The Children’s Safety Village in Orlando has taught at least 8,000 children from Central Florida counties how to be safe when crossing or walking near streets and highways, and the program has inspired other communities to build their own safety villages. Safety village designers are proactively protecting the lives of area children and helping to combat the Orlando area’s reputation as the most dangerous place in the country for pedestrians.

Mike Burske is the administrator of the latest safety village being built in Lady Lake. He is pitching the idea to other communities and has had some success inspiring others to aggressively increase pedestrian safety for children.

"If we’re doing our job correctly, a kid doesn’t get killed, and we’ll never have to meet a child or parent going through that," he said recently.

While safety villages built on a smaller scale for children are certainly a step in the right direction to reduce pedestrian accidents in our area, much remains to be done to make streets and highways safer for kids. According to the Florida Highway Patrol, hundreds of children aged nine and younger are injured each year in Florida pedestrian accidents. In 2010, 16 children in this age group were struck and killed by automobiles while walking, which was the highest number since 2007.

In a well-publicized report issued last May, the transportation group Transportation for America ranked the Orlando area the most dangerous place in the country for pedestrian accidents. The ranking inspired the Orlando City Council to award $42,000 to the non-profit group Bike/Walk Central Florida this month to begin a driver education program about pedestrian safety.

Orlando personal injury lawyer James O. Cunningham fully supports our city’s Safety Village and any other measures that protect and prevent our children from becoming pedestrian accident statistics. If you’re the parent of a child injured in a pedestrian accident and would like to learn more about your legal options, call Orlando pedestrian accident lawyer James O. Cunningham today at 888-425-2004 or 407-425-2000 to schedule a free consultation.

Orlando City Council member Daisy Lynum’s recent close call while crossing the street has given her a new sense of urgency about making Central Florida streets and highways safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Early last summer, she was crossing a street in a crosswalk in west Orlando when she was nearly struck from behind by a car. The near-accident drove home what Orlando personal injury attorneys and concerned citizens have been saying for years. They have been urging policymakers on the state and local level to finally do something about our area’s reputation as the most dangerous place in the country for people who prefer to walk or ride their bikes to get around.

Ms. Lynum had the right of way while crossing the street that day and is very fortunate that the car merely brushed her instead of striking her. She was not hurt, but her close call motivated her to take action. She voted in favor of awarding $41,750 to the non-profit group Bike/Walk Central Florida to facilitate the launch of a program that organizers hope will make area roads safer for everyone. She was also very direct in her assessment of our area’s well-documented problems with pedestrian accidents.

"Drivers really do not respect pedestrians. We have not done enough to make them respect pedestrians," she said before casting her vote as a member of MetroPlan Orlando, which sets transportation policy in Orange, Seminole and Osceola Counties.

Regular readers of this blog and residents of Central Florida know very well that the Orlando metropolitan area has been ranked the most dangerous place in the country for pedestrians. In 2010, 59 pedestrians were struck and killed by automobiles in the three-county area. While area officials are working with groups such as Bike/Walk Central Florida and allocating resources for more sidewalks to combat the problem, many feel that policymakers are overlooking the true nature of the problems. Many say that our area’s car culture and an infrastructure built to facilitate motorized transportation are the real roots of the pedestrian accident problem. Brad Kuhn, Director of Bike/Walk Central, agrees.

"It’s hard to argue that changing the culture is not necessary," he said.

The $41,750 award will be added to a $108,250 grant from the Winter Park Health Foundation to fund an 18-month project called "Triple E Initiative" that supporters are very excited about. The Initiative aims to educate pedestrians, drivers and law enforcement personnel about pedestrians’ rights and fund inexpensive measures such as painting crosswalks with brighter colors to make area streets and highways safer.

Orlando personal injury lawyer James O. Cunningham fully endorses these and other measures to make our area safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and everyone on area roadways. Since 1977, he has used his skills, resources and experience to help people injured in Orlando pedestrian accidents receive the compensation they need to cover medical bills and other accident related costs. If you or a close family member has been injured in a pedestrian accident, call 888-425-2004 or 407-425-2000 today to schedule a free consultation.

A tragic pedestrian accident has claimed the life of a 21-year-old Orlando man who stepped off a median on Wetherbee Road into the path of car driven by an Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy. The deputy was trying to stop an illegal street race around 3 a.m. early on the morning of July 3. Orlando personal injury lawyer James O. Cunningham has seen tragic accidents like this happen many times over the years, and they all share a common thread – reckless and completely unnecessary and negligent driving. He knows that the sheriff’s deputy is as much of a victim as the unfortunate pedestrian who appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when officers were trying to apprehend drag racers.
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We have talked many times in this blog about the Orlando area in particular and Florida in general being the most dangerous places in the country for pedestrian accidents. This troubling and unfortunate distinction is well known and has been documented many times by federal and private agencies over the last several years.

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A recent survey confirmed a sad fact that Orlando personal injury lawyers and area residents have known for a long time; Orlando is the country’s most dangerous city for pedestrians. From 2000 to 2009, 557 people were struck and killed in pedestrian accidents in the Orlando/Kissimmee metro area, a frightening number that Central Floridians are reminded of far too often. The survey was conducted by Transportation for America, and the group cited the causes of our city’s ignominious ranking as high vehicular traffic, unsafe existing sidewalks and a lack of sidewalks in the city’s infrastructure. Most of our area was designed specifically to accommodate motorized vehicles, not pedestrians, an important factor that needs to be addressed in the short term to make our area safer for pedestrians.
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A woman was struck and fatally injured on the morning of Friday, May 13 while crossing Orange Blossom Trail in south Orange County. Florida Highway Patrol officers are still investigating the accident, but they say that the 41-year-old victim was walking along Orange Blossom Trail around 5:14 a.m. when she stepped in front of a 2011 Ford F-250 that was heading southbound on Orange Blossom Trail near La Quinta Drive. Police say the truck was driven by a 38-year-old Orlando man, and charges are pending against the man during investigation. The woman died at the scene from her injuries.
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Orlando officials are planning an additional 18 miles of sidewalks for city streets in an ambitious project scheduled to get underway this year. The additional miles of sidewalk are more than four times what they originally planned, and city officials are going to add even more miles of sidewalks after this part of the plan is complete. Orlando personal injury lawyer James O. Cunningham fully supports this and any other plans to reduce pedestrian accidents and make Orlando a safer place for people who walk, bike and jog on area roadways. He has been a strong advocate for making area streets and highways safer for everyone and supports any measure that prevents accidents.
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