The Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FHSMV) is the place to go for Florida car accident statistics. The FHSMV’s Crash Dashboard lists nearly up-to-date information on car accidents in Florida. You can sort by Year, County, and Crash Type.
The information is organized and displayed in easy-to-understand, user-friendly formats. There are charts and graphs as well as drop-down lists to make your search for information about Florida car accident statistics convenient.
The site offers a grim picture of the death and destruction that occurs daily on Florida roads and highways. Because of constantly improving engineering to reduce crash damage, such as crumple zones in vehicle bodies to absorb impact as well as enhanced safety features like passenger side airbags, injury and death from traffic crashes across the country had been steadily declining over the decades. But with the rise of cell phones and other gadgets that distract drivers, the carnage has resumed an upward trend in Florida car accident statistics.
Florida Car Accident Statistics Drive Calls for Safety
The site is used by regulators, policy planners, and others with an interest in highway safety to help in efforts to reduce the number of Florida car accidents. The highway safety advocacy group Smart Growth America (SGA), for instance, uses the data to analyze ways to improve roadway designs through reengineering. The group also lobbies for more progressive traffic laws.
According to SGA, there’s a lot of room for improvement in both Florida highway safety laws and roadway engineering. The group highlights pedestrian safety and lists Daytona Beach as the most dangerous city in the country for pedestrians and bicyclists, and Florida as the second most dangerous state in the country.
Florida Highway Patrol Lieutenant Jason King calls the rising rate of death and injury “unnerving” and says there are some basic safety measures that Floridians can take to improve the situation. He says drunk driving, distracted driving, and not using seatbelts contribute to the dangerous situation, as well as careless pedestrian behavior. “Please, please, please wear your seatbelt, plan ahead and leave enough time to get to your destination, wear the seatbelt, put the distraction device down, monitor your speed, and pay attention to the traffic around you,” said King. “If you’re a pedestrian, wear bright clothing or have a flashlight, and as a motorist, put the distractive device down, wear your seatbelt and pay attention to the road.”
As Trooper King points out, the main driver in the increase of death and injury in Florida car accident statistics is driver error, negligence, or carelessness.
If you’ve been injured in a car crash, talk to an Orlando car accident attorney at the Martinez Manglardi personal injury law firm. Call 866-730-3508 for a free consultation. Convenient locations throughout Central Florida.