Over 6,000 Jacksonville Crashes in 2025 Were Hit-and-Runs, the Most of Any Florida City
- April Karaffa
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
By April Karaffa, Director of Business Development and Operations, The Moore Law Firm
Summary
Drivers fled the scene of 6,082 Jacksonville crashes in 2025, about 1 in 6 (16.9%), or roughly one every 90 minutes all year long.
That is the most of any city in Florida, ahead of Miami (4,424) and Tampa (3,147). Jacksonville already has the most crashes of any city in the state, and it flees them at an above-average rate, higher than the 13.5% statewide mark.
Thankfully, fled crashes are mostly minor: they turn serious or fatal 0.69% of the time, versus 1.55% when the driver stays. The trouble is what happens when one is not minor.
A fled crash has no one to call it in. Comparing crash times to reported times across Florida's 2025 records, hit-and-run crashes took 12.8 minutes on average to be reported, more than three times the 4.0 minutes for crashes where someone stayed. And 42 of Jacksonville's fled crashes were still severe, 13 of them fatal.
Source: Florida 2025 preliminary FDOT and FLHSMV crash release. City counts cover all Florida cities (Jacksonville: 36,045 crashes). Hit-and-run is the officer-coded post-crash flag; reporting-time figures are computed from the statewide file.
Why we counted the crashes drivers walked away from
At the firm, the cases that stay with you are the ones where there is no one on the other side. A client is hurt, the bills start, and the driver who caused it is simply gone. We see enough of those that when Florida released its 2025 crash data, we wanted to know how common it really is on Jacksonville's roads.
The answer was higher than we expected, and it points somewhere we did not expect. The story of a hit-and-run is not how bad the crash was. It is the time the driver steals by leaving.
What the number is
Jacksonville recorded 36,045 crashes in 2025, more than any other city in Florida. In 6,082 of them, the at-fault driver left the scene. That is about one in six crashes, or roughly one every 90 minutes, every day of the year.
It is also the most fled crashes of any city in the state, and the rate is not just a side effect of being the busiest one.
City | Total crashes | Hit-and-run | Hit-and-run rate |
Jacksonville | 36,045 | 6,082 | 16.9% |
Miami | 26,655 | 4,424 | 16.6% |
Tampa | 19,355 | 3,147 | 16.3% |
Orlando | 19,052 | 2,965 | 15.6% |
Fort Lauderdale | 12,799 | 2,455 | 19.2% |
Hialeah | 11,674 | 1,573 | 13.5% |
Tallahassee | 7,846 | 1,456 | 18.6% |
St. Petersburg | 7,557 | 1,425 | 18.9% |
Florida (all crashes) | 686,674 | 92,507 | 13.5% |
Hit-and-run crashes by Florida city, 2025. Jacksonville has the most of any city, and a rate above the 13.5% statewide average.
Two things stand out. Jacksonville has the most hit-and-runs by a wide margin, nearly 40% more than Miami, the next closest. And it is not only because Jacksonville is the largest city: its 16.9% rate runs well above the 13.5% statewide figure, even if it is not the highest rate in the state, about a dozen Florida cities run higher. The city with the most crashes also flees them more often than the state as a whole.
Most fled crashes are minor. That is not the comfort it sounds like.
Here is the part that surprised us. Fled crashes are not the violent ones. In Jacksonville, a hit-and-run ends in serious injury or death 0.69% of the time, less than half the 1.55% rate for crashes where the driver stayed. Most people who flee are walking away from a fender-bender, not a fatality.
The danger is the gap they leave behind. When a driver stays, someone calls for help almost immediately. When a driver flees, there may be no one to make that call, especially if the person who was hit is hurt and alone. We checked this directly: comparing each crash's reported time to its crash time across Florida's 2025 records, hit-and-run crashes took an average of 12.8 minutes to be reported, against 4.0 minutes for crashes where someone stayed. More than three times longer.
For most fled crashes, that delay costs a few minutes and nothing more. For the ones that are severe, it can cost everything, because the minutes right after a serious crash are the ones that decide whether a person makes it. And those crashes happen here. Forty-two of Jacksonville's hit-and-runs in 2025 were serious or fatal, 13 of them deadly. In every one, someone was badly hurt or killed, and the person responsible decided that not being found mattered more.
What it costs the people left behind
A driver who leaves is not just dodging a ticket. They are handing the person they hit the entire weight of the crash: the ambulance, the hospital, the lost work, the repairs. When there is no at-fault driver to identify, there is no at-fault insurer to bill, and the costs do not pause to wait for one.
This is where uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matters. It is the part of your own policy built for exactly this situation, when the driver who hurt you cannot be found or carries nothing. Many people do not know whether they have it until they need it. Florida's comparative-negligence rules still apply, and the evidence that protects you, the scene photos, the witnesses, the timeline, is strongest in the first hours and fades fast. A driver who flees is counting on it disappearing.
Open threads we're chasing next
Which Jacksonville roads and which hours the fled crashes cluster on.
How often drivers who flee are actually identified and charged, which the crash file does not record.
How Jacksonville's hit-and-run picture compares with the rest of Northeast Florida.
Whether any Florida city runs against the statewide pattern, with fled crashes ending in serious injury or death more often than crashes where the driver stayed.
What this data can and cannot say
These are preliminary FDOT numbers and may be revised as the state finalizes the release. The city ranking covers every city in Florida, so it is statewide. The reporting-time figures are computed from the statewide file, since the local dataset carries no timestamps, so read them as a Florida-wide pattern that applies here rather than a Jacksonville-specific number. And the hit-and-run flag is recorded after the crash by the investigating officer; it cannot tell us whether the fleeing driver was later found.
Questions that come up in our intake
A driver hit me and drove off. What should I do right now?
Get yourself safe and call 911, then capture everything you can while it is fresh: the other vehicle's make, color, and any part of the plate, the direction it went, the time, and the names of anyone who saw it. Photograph the scene and your vehicle. The details you record in the first few minutes are often what lets police and your lawyer reconstruct what happened.
I witnessed a hit-and-run, or saw a car leave the scene. How can I help?
You may be the only reason the driver is found. If it is safe, call 911 and stay until officers arrive so you can give a statement, but do not chase the fleeing car. Write down or record the plate, the make, model, and color, the direction of travel, and the time. A witness who stays and shares what they saw is often worth more to the case than any other piece of evidence.
Will my own insurance cover a hit-and-run?
It can, depending on your coverage. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is the part of a Florida auto policy designed to respond when the at-fault driver cannot be found or has no insurance, and it is often the difference between a covered claim and an empty one. It is worth checking your policy now, before you ever need it.
What is uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, exactly?
It is optional coverage you carry on your own policy that pays for your injuries when the responsible driver cannot cover them, including when they flee. In a hit-and-run it frequently becomes the primary source of recovery. If you are not sure whether you have it, your declarations page will say.
Can the police actually find a driver who fled?
Sometimes, and it often turns on the evidence gathered early: a partial plate, a vehicle description, debris left at the scene, nearby camera footage, and witnesses. The faster that information is collected and preserved, the better the odds, which is why documenting the scene matters so much.
If you've experienced an accident on the road in NE Florida, even if the driver who hit you took off and left you with the bill, the Moore Law Firm treats every case with high importance. We secure the medical evidence, the scene evidence, and the witness work these cases demand. So don't be someone who takes a toll all for nothing. When you are ready to talk, we'll be ready to fight for you.
