The first day of school drop-off lines can be particularly hectic with friends waving to one another after months away and frustrating traffic jams but, for one Florida family, the new school year’s drop-off turned tragic when a mother accidentally hit her child with her car.
The incident happened before 8 a.m. Monday during school drop-off when the Sarasota middle schooler was attempting to retrieve school supplies that had fallen underneath the car. The child crawled under the SUV to pick up the pens and markers. The mother, who told police she did not see the girl, hit her.
The girl was airlifted to a hospital in St. Petersburg in critical condition. There was no update on the child’s condition as of Tuesday.
The latest available data from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration shows that approximately 162,298 children aged 14 and younger were injured in crashes in the United States in 2021. This represents a 17% increase from the previous year which shows that there were 139,058 children injured in crashes in 2020.
In 2021, there were 863 children killed in crashes in which they were passengers in the car involved in the collision. Approximately 176 pedestrians who were children were killed in 2021.
Leesfield & Partners
As a personal injury law firm in a state that sees an average of 400,000 crashes each year, Leesfield & Partners attorneys have become experts in automobile crash cases on Florida roads. Their experience and dogged persistence to achieve the best possible outcome for clients have resulted in favorable results for complicated cases of uninsured motorists and emotionally taxing cases in the instance of a client’s lost loved one. The firm has handled cases involving distracted and impaired drivers and incidents in which a client has sustained catastrophic injury.
In Monroe County, where the firm has one of three Florida locations, there were 1,401 total crashes recorded in 2023, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles with over 900 injuries and 15 fatalities resulting from those crashes.
In one case out of Key West, a driver distracted by adjusting their car’s GPS crashed into a bicyclist stopped on the shoulder of the Overseas Highway. The bicyclist suffered multiple life-threatening injuries from the accident. A $5.35 million settlement was reached by Leesfield & Partners attorneys.
Another case, also out of Key West, involved the permanent injury and disfigurement of a man riding a scooter who was hit by an ambulance. The man had a green light and, as he crossed the intersection, was hit by an ambulance and thrown into a cement wall. The man was airlifted to the hospital and was hospitalized for 12 days while he received treatment. In addition to multiple broken bones in his face and injuries to his teeth, the man’s back was fractured in three places. One vertebra was almost completely crushed in the incident. The ambulance driver said that because he was on the way to an emergency, he had the right of way, but no lights or siren signaled that he was in the middle of an emergency that would prompt other drivers on the road to yield to his emergency vehicle or know that he would not stop at the red light.
Attorneys with the firm secured a $2.1 million award for the client in that case.
The firm previously worked on a case involving a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy and his son who were involved in a crash on Overseas Highway. The other driver failed to yield and pulled out right in front of the father and son’s car, causing the high-speed crash. Security footage from nearby businesses and dashboard data concluded that the deputy was not speeding at the time of the crash. The other driver’s insurance company tendered its $300,000+ policy limits.
More recently, Evan Robinson, a Leesfield & Partners Trial Lawyer, secured a six-figure settlement of a combined bodily injury award and uninsured motorist policy coverage for a client injured while on the road in Monroe County.
Back-to-School Road Safety
- Never pass a school bus that is stopped, allowing children to board or disembark.
- Keep your eyes on the road and avoid distractions such as radios, GPS systems, and cell phones.
- Adhere to reduced speed laws when in school zones. In data from the FLHSMV, approximately 41,000 citations were issued across the state to drivers who did not adhere to school or work zone speeding regulations.
- Only drive or park in designated areas for pickup or drop-off.
- Always check and make sure you have proper visibility when putting your car in reverse. A 2023 survey showed that over 40% of all back over incidents injured children 10 years old and younger, according to the FLHSMV press release.
- Always use designated crosswalks when crossing the street.
- Always wear a seatbelt in the car and be sure your passengers have on their seatbelts as well.
- Always check your backseat for children and pets