Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

When it comes to auto insurance, Florida and Maine tell a tale of rags and riches.

Florida has more uninsured motorists on the road than any state in the nation and ranks dead last in the nation when it comes to required auto insurance. Maine has a spot near the front of the pack in both categories. The New Year is often a time when we make commitments,  drop or extend insurance coverages, and make other changes to the paperwork of our lives. 

Our car accident attorneys in Fort Myers and Naples know unless you’ve taken specific steps to assure you are protected, it’s very likely the auto insurance premiums you pay each month could be for a policy that is worthless in the event you are involved in a serious or fatal traffic collision. We’ve been reporting a lot recently about the dangers of holiday traffic and the increased risk of motor-vehicle collisions as we head into tourist season. While we hope you read the road advice and heed the safe-driving warnings, updating your auto insurance policy is vital to protecting you and your family in the event of a collision.

Uninsured Motorist Collisions in SWFL

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Cape Coral drivers would do well to avoid Santa Barbara Boulevard and Cape Coral Parkway. Both the intersection and the roads themselves.

As part of an ongoing series on Cape Coral traffic, The News-Press looked at the city’s most dangerous traffic hotspots. Heavy traffic was the common denominator. Each of the six most dangerous intersections handled between 40,000 and 100,000 cars per day in 2017.

Recently we wrote about the dangers of intersection accidents in Southwest Florida. While it’s true intersections are always dangerous, Southwest Florida’s relentless growth is making the dangers even more acute as roads and traffic infrastructure struggle to keep up with the demands.

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Long-awaited pedestrian safety improvements are coming to downtown Fort Myers. But residents will first have to weather a storm of construction headaches.

Wink News reports the Florida Department of Transportation held a public meeting about the downtown Fort Myers construction project. The Cleveland Avenue Pedestrian Safety Project will run from Winkler Avenue to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. In addition to road resurfacing and remarking, FDOT plans to construct a raised median and five mid-block crossings with overhead mounted pedestrian signals. These signals are called High-Intensity Activated crosswalk beacons, or pedestrian hybrid beacons.

Florida is the most dangerous state in the nation for pedestrians and Southwest Florida has been cited as being particularly deadly. Much of the risk can be attributed to poor design and lack of adequate infrastructure planning during the area’s early boom years. Home to just 27,000 residents in 1970, For Myers has tripled in size. Two years ago, Smart Growth America’s report “Dangerous by Design,” identified the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area as the nation’s most dangerous for pedestrians.

The same report identified Florida cities as the seven-deadliest in the nation.

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No discussion of road risks would be complete as we head into the holiday and winter tourist season without talking about teen drivers.

Traffic deaths are the leading cause of accidental death among teens. Your child is more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than by any other means. Each year, 2,500 teenagers are killed and about 300,000 are treated in hospital emergency rooms following a motor-vehicle collision, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The start of the school year and the start of the new year are the most popular times for teenagers to get their driver’s license and hit the road.

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City drivers are being reminded of the return in seasonal traffic after a spate of serious intersection collisions in Lee County.

NBC2 reported a 7-car accident in Fort Myers shut down U.S. 4/Cleveland Avenue near Hanson Street. One vehicle ended up on its side. Four people were taken to the hospital with serious injuries. A Lehigh Acres intersection collision killed a 30-year-old man who was westbound on SR 82 when authorities say a 43-year-old woman pulled out in front of him in a minivan. 

Holiday traffic will merge with winter tourist season in Southwest Florida. Put succinctly: Current traffic conditions are as good as they are going to get for the next six months.

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The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released the first major study on the effectiveness of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

While a decade ago, we began seeing the first fully functional touch-screen entertainment and navigation systems in new vehicles, the last five years have witnessed an increasing number of driver assistance devices, such as backup cameras, parallel parking systems, and crash-avoidance technology.

“As these technologies become more available to motorists, they have the potential to reduce rates of crashes, injuries and deaths on our roadways,” the Foundation states in releasing the report. “However, that potential will not be realized fully unless consumers accept these technologies, understand how to use them, use them as intended, and avoid misusing or becoming overreliant on them.”

That’s a tall order.

Such technology has played a role in an increasing number of injury and wrongful death claims. And, with driverless vehicles just over the horizon, such claims are likely to be further complicated by advancing technology for decades to come. Some future cases will undoubtedly involve defective-product litigation. However, in many cases it will be up to your injury lawyer to prove an at-fault driver used safety technology inappropriately, or relied upon it to an unreasonable degree.

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