Since 2020, the number of crashes and resultant deaths involving non-motorists such as bicyclists and other pedestrians in Florida have increased as the population of the state rose.
Those kind of numbers lead to Florida’s rank as the second deadliest state for pedestrians, according to a 2022 report by the National Complete Streets Coalition, a part of Smart Growth America .
In 2022 there were 319 crashes in Lee County involving bicyclists, an increase from 2021 where there were 256. There were nine fatalities involving bicyclists in 2022, and eight in 2021.
For pedestrians, there were 33 deaths from 344 crashes in 2022. Those numbers in 2021 were 24 deaths from 344 crashes.
Those numbers are mostly increases from previous years: 2020: 8 bike deaths from 256 crashes; 22 pedestrian deaths from 297 crashes.
2019: 4 bike deaths from 221 crashes; 23 pedestrian deaths from 274 crashes.
2018: 6 bike deaths friom 206 crashes; 22 pedestrian deaths from 267 crashes. Although driving has decreased during the pandemic, deaths of pedestrians manage to increase 4.7% and one of the biggest factors contributing to these crashes is distracted driving. In his 40 years of work, Dan Moser, a founding member of BikeWalkLee, spent 22 years with the Department of Health and with EMS in injury prevention for pedestrian bicycle traffic.“What’s becoming, I think some of the biggest problems, are people that are distracted. The drivers that are distracted that just swerve a little bit into a bike lane or into where like a pedestrian is. […]
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