Pedestrian Critically Injured in Crash on Court Street in Clearwater. Florida (FL)

CLEARWATER, FL- Patch.com writes that a pedestrian suffered serious life-threatening injuries in a collision this week in Clearwater.* 

The victim, identified as a 65-year-old man from Clearwater, was attempting to cross the street when an 82-year-old Cape Coral man in a Toyota Camry struck him. Responders rushed the injured pedestrian to the Bayfront Health-St. Petersburg where he was listed as being in critical condition. 

Studies indicate that Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford is the deadliest part of the country for pedestrians. In fact, Florida takes up the first six spots on the list of the most dangerous twenty metropolitan areas in the country for pedestrians, according to Smart Growth America. The Sunshine State also lands in eighth, ninth, and fourteenth place, making it the home of nine out of twenty of the most dangerous urban areas to walk in the United States. 

Not surprisingly, Florida is the worst state for pedestrians and has a pedestrian danger index of 182. Pedestrian danger indexes or PDIs are assigned based on an analysis of how deadly it is for people to walk in a city based on the size of the population and the number of people who walk to work. For comparison, the next highest PDI is in Alabama, with 145, and the number twenty spot on the list is Kentucky, with a PDI of 57.5. The site only shows the twenty worst states, and the PDI for Florida is more than triple that assigned to Kentucky. 

When comparing American cities to the safest in the world, it becomes apparent that much more could be done to improve safety for pedestrians. In fact, two major Scandinavian cities managed to eliminate pedestrian deaths in 2019. Oslo and Helsinki demonstrated the fact that Vision Zero efforts are not impossible pipe dreams, but realistic goals. Of course, these cities made major changes, including drastic reductions to speed limits and banning vehicle traffic in certain areas in order to achieve their goals. 

Accident News is a safety and education initiative from Montlick & Associates, designed to help people better understand and thereby avoid common accident causes.  To learn more about our injury prevention programs, including iridesafe.com - click here. We hope you are never in an accident, but if you or a family member are injured, call Montlick & Associates 24/7 for your free consultation at 1-800-LAW-NEED (1-800-529-6333) or use our live chat at Montlick.com.

Sources:

https://patch.com/florida/bloomingdale/pedestrian-sustains-life-threatening-injuries-clearwater-crash

https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-and-oslo-cut-pedestrian-deaths-to-zero#:~:text=Although%20both%20cities%20recorded%20zero,in%20the%20city%20this%20year.