Personal injury prevention measures can help keep children safe in Fort Lauderdale
If you’re a parent in South Florida, any potential personal injury to your children should concern you; indeed, personal injury for a child is probably inevitable. We’ve focused a prior discussion on playground safety; this time, we’re focusing on motor vehicle and pedestrian safety for children and personal injury prevention, starting with car accidents.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov) reports that car crashes remain the leading cause of death for children, citing these statistics:
- While crash deaths have decreased in the past decade, with a 43 percent drop, still more than 650 children age 12 and under died in crashes in 2011.
- One in 3 children who died in crashes in 2011 was not buckled up.
In fact, in the instances in which children were not secured in their seat with a seatbelt, more older children, ages 8-12, were not buckled compared to younger children, the CDC reports. Needless to say, child passenger restraint laws that increase the age for car seat or booster seat use increases safety. Among five states that increased the required car seat or booster seat age to 7 or 8 years, car seat and booster seat use tripled, and deaths and serious injuries decreased by 17%.
In Florida, children 5 years old or younger must be secured in a federally approved child restraint system. Children 3 years old and younger must use a separate car seat or the vehicle’s built-in child seat. Clearly, there is room to tweak this law in Florida, which could save more lives, the CDC states.
According to information compiled by the CDC, “thousands of Floridians are killed each year in preventable motor vehicle crashes. Florida can consider the following evidence-based strategies that are proven to save lives and money: a primary enforcement seat belt law that covers all seating positions and strong child passenger safety policies that require age- and size-appropriate child safety and booster seats.”
Florida law states that front seat passengers must wear seat belts. This law applies to any car manufactured since 1968. in addition, all passengers under 18 years old must wear a seat belt or be otherwise restrained by a child car seat.
Having everyone in the car buckled up makes the most sense – as personal injury attorneys, we have seen first-hand the devastation caused in a motor vehicle accident in Fort Lauderdale and the resulting personal injuries, from which victims sometimes never fully recover.
But not every incidence of personal injury occurs in the motor vehicle in South Florida. Sometimes, people are out walking. The CDC reports that, in 2013, 4,735 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in the United States. This averages to one crash-related pedestrian death every 2 hours.
Additionally, more than 150,000 pedestrians were treated in emergency departments for non-fatal crash-related injuries in 2013. Pedestrians are 1.5 times more likely than passenger vehicle occupants to be killed in a car crash on each trip.
In Florida, pedestrians have the greatest chance of being struck by a motor vehicle, as the state ranks as the most dangerous place for pedestrians.
According to a 2015 Miami-Herald article: “With pedestrian fatalities at a 10-year high, Florida leads the way among the seven most dangerous metropolitan communities to walk around in the country. Though South Florida didn’t crack the top 10, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach came in at a not-so-respectable 11th, according to the Dangerous by Design report released by Smart Growth America, a Washington D.C.-based organization that advocates for walkable cities.”
Who is the most at risk to be hit? Who would you think? In 2013, one in every five children under the age of 14 who were killed in traffic crashes were pedestrians.
How do you get kids to pay attention to what’s coming at them? That can be a challenge – children are fidgety, with limited attention spans. Add in other children, sites and attractions and cell phone use, and the danger multiplies. Here are some suggestions from safekids.org for personal injury prevention:
- Teach kids at an early age to look left, right and left again before crossing the street. Then remind them to continue looking until safely across.
- Teach your children to walk on sidewalks or paths and cross at street corners, using traffic signals and crosswalks. If there are no sidewalks, walk facing traffic as far to the left as possible.
- Children should make eye contact with drivers before crossing the street.
- Children under 10 need to cross the street with an adult, because most children are unable to judge the speed and distance of oncoming cars until age 10.
- Encourage kids to be especially alert for cars that are turning or backing up.
- Children should be taught to never run or dart out into the street or cross between parked cars.
- If kids are walking when it’s dark out, they should be alert and make sure they are visible to drivers. Have them wear light- or brightly-colored clothing and reflective gear.
In addition, children should always put away the phone, headphone and other device when walking and crossing the street. What better way to teach this than to be a good adult role model? Parents should always set a good example by putting away their mobile devices, especially when driving, when these could be most distracting. They should also slow down when driving in residential neighborhoods and school zones and always be on the lookout for bikers and pedestrians and give them the right of way.
Parenting is tough, but staying alert, focused and conscientious can help children avoid the dangers associated with personal injury. If you or a loved one has suffered because of an accident, make sure to contact a personal injury litigation attorney in Fort Lauderdale to make sure you, your child or other family member receives the compensation they deserve for their medical expenses.
