No Florida City Kills More People Outside a Car Than Jacksonville, Even With Fewer of Them in Its Crashes
- April Karaffa
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
By April Karaffa, Director of Business Development and Operations, The Moore Law Firm
Summary
Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists were involved in just 3.7% of Jacksonville's 2025 crashes but accounted for 92 of its 166 road deaths, about 55%.
That is the most vulnerable-road-user deaths of any city in Florida, more than double second-place Miami (42), even though Miami had more of these crashes (1,569 to Jacksonville's 1,331).
When someone outside a car is in a Jacksonville crash, it ends in serious injury or death (a severe crash) 14.7% of the time, against 0.90% when everyone is inside a vehicle, roughly 16 times as dangerous.
They die for different reasons. Motorcyclists are the deadliest per crash, pedestrians are killed on major arterials, and cyclists are struck least often of the three. A couple of roads, Southside and Beach Boulevards, are dangerous to all of them. This piece is the overview, and each group has its own.
Source: Florida 2025 preliminary FDOT and FLHSMV crash release; city counts cover all Florida cities. A severe crash means serious (incapacitating) injury or death, using FDOT's KABCO highest-wins rule.
Why we add up everyone outside a car
Crash data is usually read one category at a time, and read that way, people outside a car barely register: a percent for pedestrians, a percent each for cyclists and motorcyclists, each one a rounding error. Group them, and the rounding errors turn into the majority of the city's dead.
So we ran the 2025 data a different way, not by vehicle type, but by who had protection and who did not. The three groups do not die the same way, and we have written about them separately, but the combined picture is the one worth starting with.
Three percent of the crashes, more than half the dead
In 2025, Jacksonville had 1,331 crashes involving a pedestrian, cyclist, or motorcyclist, about 3.7% of every crash in the city, and those crashes accounted for 92 of its 166 road deaths.
Road user | Crashes involved | Severe when involved | Deaths | Share of all road deaths |
Motorcyclists | 475 | 21.7% | 43 | 25.9% |
Pedestrians | 480 | 15.6% | 38 | 22.9% |
Bicyclists | 379 | 6.3% | 11 | 6.6% |
All outside a car | 1,331 | 14.7% | 92 | 55.4% |
Everyone inside a vehicle | 34,714 | 0.90% | 74 | 44.6% |
How Jacksonville's 2025 crashes break down by who was outside a car. The bottom two rows are the contrast: a sliver of crashes, most of the deaths.
The same pattern holds statewide, but milder. Across Florida, vulnerable road users are 47% of all road deaths; in Jacksonville they are 55%. And from just 3.8% of the state's vulnerable-road-user crashes, Jacksonville produced 6.6% of its vulnerable-road-user deaths, one city carrying nearly double its share.
The most of any city in Florida, from fewer crashes than Miami
We checked every city in the state. No city lost more vulnerable road users in 2025 than Jacksonville, whose 92 deaths more than double Miami's 42 and dwarf Tampa's 34.
And it is not because more of them are struck here. Miami actually had more of these crashes than Jacksonville, 1,569 to 1,331, and lost fewer than half as many people. Jacksonville in fact has one of the lowest shares of crashes involving a vulnerable road user of any large Florida city. Few are hit here, relative to the city's size, and yet more die than anywhere else. The toll is about how these crashes end, not how often they happen.
The one thing all three share
Whatever else differs between them, pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists share the fact that nothing stands between them and the vehicle. The data puts a number on it. When a vulnerable road user is involved, a Jacksonville crash turns serious or fatal 14.7% of the time. When everyone is inside a vehicle, that figure is 0.90%. The same city, the same roads, and roughly sixteen times the chance of a severe outcome the moment someone is exposed.
That shared vulnerability is why these three belong in one conversation. But it is also where the similarity ends, because what puts each group in harm's way is different.
Three road users, three different stories
Motorcyclists are the deadliest per crash. About one in five motorcycle crashes ends in serious injury or death, and Jacksonville leads the entire state in rider deaths. The danger starts with exposure, a rider has nothing around them, and gets worse when speeding, aggression, or impairment ride along, though even a clean crash with none of those can kill. We break that down in our piece on Jacksonville's motorcycle deaths.
Pedestrians are rare in the crash data but the hardest to save. People on foot are barely 1% of Jacksonville's crashes, yet the city leads Florida in pedestrian deaths, and most of the severe ones carry no driver red flag at all. The danger there is the roads, the major arterials where the severe crashes pile up, with darkness the one condition that clearly raises the odds. We cover that in our piece on Jacksonville's pedestrian deaths.
Bicyclists are struck least and die least, but not safely. Cyclists were in 379 crashes with 11 deaths, the lowest severe rate of the three at 6.3%. Their severe crashes are few and scattered, with no road carrying more than two, but those two, Southside and Beach Boulevards, are the same arterials that endanger pedestrians and riders. They are the one group here without a piece of their own yet.
A few roads are dangerous to all of them
Cause aside, do the three meet on the same streets? Mostly they do not, but a short list stands out.
Road | Pedestrian | Bicyclist | Motorcyclist | Severe VRU crashes |
Interstate / ramp system | 4 | 1 | 22 | 27 |
Southside Boulevard | 4 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
Beach Boulevard | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
Lane Avenue South | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
Normandy Boulevard | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
Philips Highway | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
Cassat Avenue | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
Severe vulnerable-road-user crashes by road and mode, Jacksonville 2025. Per-road counts are small, so read the pattern, not the exact figures.
Of the roughly 109 roads with a severe vulnerable-road-user crash, only 17 had them in more than one mode, and a handful, Southside Boulevard, Beach Boulevard, Philips Highway, and Blanding Boulevard, were severe for all three. The single biggest location, the interstate and ramp system, is almost entirely a motorcycle problem. So the danger is mostly mode-specific, with a short list of arterials that fail everyone outside a car.
What the data leaves open
Which specific intersections, not just roads, carry the most vulnerable-road-user deaths.
How time of day and lighting differ between pedestrian, cyclist, and motorcyclist crashes.
How Jacksonville's vulnerable-road-user toll compares with the rest of Northeast Florida.
What this data can and cannot say
These are preliminary FDOT numbers and may be revised as the state finalizes the 2025 release. The city comparison covers every Florida city in the data, so the rankings are statewide. The per-mode death counts are small, so individual figures move easily, though the citywide totals are stable. And a few non-city labels in the source data, such as expressway corridors, are excluded from the city ranking.
Some questions that do come up
The driver's insurance adjuster already called me with a settlement offer. Should I take it?
An early offer almost always arrives before anyone knows how bad the injuries really are, and for someone who was outside a car those can take weeks to fully surface. Once you accept, you generally cannot reopen the claim for what you learn later. It is worth understanding the full medical picture before you sign anything.
I was in the crosswalk on a walk signal and still got hit. Is the driver automatically at fault?
Having the signal is strong evidence for you, but Florida apportions fault by what each person actually did, so "automatic" is rarely the right word, a driver may still argue you stepped out late or were hard to see. The signal timing, the crash report, and any witnesses are what settle it, which is why preserving them early matters.
The police report seems to blame me, or doesn't mention the driver's fault. Is my case over?
No. A crash report is the officer's first read, not a verdict, and it can be supplemented or challenged with evidence the officer never had at the scene: photos, nearby video, reconstruction, and witness accounts. Cases that looked one-sided at the scene often shift once that evidence comes in.
How long do I have to bring a claim in Florida?
Less time than most people assume. Florida shortened the deadline for most negligence injury claims to two years in 2023, and it can be shorter still when a government entity is involved. Evidence also fades fast, so the practical deadline usually comes well before the legal one.
If you've experienced an accident on the road in NE Florida, even if you were on foot, on a bike, or on a motorcycle and the driver claims they never saw you, 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.
