Cutting down on speeding saves lives. Why doesn’t Tampa Bay do it?

A blue Ford Bronco rumbles along 49th Street S in St. Petersburg, near the Pinellas Trail crossing. A nearby street sign says, “SPEED LIMIT 35 mph.” I’m holding a radar gun, and its screen glows to life. 54 mph Luckily, no one stepped into the crossing. A driver who hits a pedestrian at that speed will kill them nearly every time.A few seconds later, a Ram pickup drives by. 43 mph And then a Toyota Camry, which doesn’t slow down as a cyclist on the trail rolls up to the intersection. 47 mph Take a radar gun to most busy streets in the Tampa Bay area, and you’ll find a lot of speeders. They treat the speed limit not as the law, but merely a suggestion.That’s a problem — a deadly one.Speed contributes to pedestrian deaths in several ways. And we have a lot of pedestrian deaths in the Tampa Bay area. Our streets are among the deadliest for walkers and cyclists in the country. This month, four more pedestrians died when a driver jumped a curb in Ybor City and smashed into a busy outdoor seating area. We kill pedestrians at nearly twice the rate of other large U.S. cities, and four times higher than some peer cities. In some years, our pedestrian deaths rival the number of murders.We killed 599 pedestrians over five years, according to a recent analysis. Minneapolis, which is more populated than the Tampa Bay metro area, killed 155.Nearly every driver speeds occasionally, at least a little. We have all heard someone say that it’s OK to go 5 mph over the limit, maybe even 10 mph. Perhaps we have said it ourselves. But who would think it’s OK to shoplift just a little? Or that burglary is fine in small doses?For most, the breach feels negligible and harmless. It helps us reach our destination faster. What’s the big deal? Hold that thought and consider this one: Why do we think that speeding is OK at all? When you think about it, it’s odd. People often overestimate their driving ability and underestimate the impact of speeding on reaction time and the severity of a crash.Speed kills thanks to simple physics and biology. Flesh and bone are no match for a 3,000-pound car. Heavier trucks and SUVs cause even more damage, especially since their boxy shapes and high front ends are far more likely to bulldoze pedestrians, slamming them to the pavement and running over them. Car or truck, every mile per hour counts. A person hit by a vehicle traveling at 20 mph is highly likely to survive. Get hit at 42 mph, and they have just as much chance of dying as surviving.Let’s turn that around. A driver who hits a pedestrian at just 42 mph will kill them half of the time. In a 35 mph zone, that’s just 7 mph over the limit, within the range that we so often rationalize as being OK. But it’s enough to turn an otherwise law-abiding driver into a killer.On a recent Tuesday morning, I’m at the intersection of Druid Road and the Duke Energy Trail in Clearwater. Druid is three lanes where it crosses the popular pedestrian trail — one lane in each direction, separated by a turn lane in the middle. The crosswalk is easy to see, emblazoned in white paint, and it’s on a straight, open and treeless part of the road. Multiple signs warn drivers to yield to pedestrians. A nearby speed limit sign says “30 mph.”In an hour, the radar gun locks onto nearly every car and truck that passes. Thirty-two vehicles zoom by traveling at least 10 mph over the posted limit. 40 mph 42 mph 46 mph During the hour, almost 100 pedestrians enter the crosswalk. Eight drivers fail to stop, but at least no one gets hit.The morning is clear and sunny, just before 11 a.m. I’m thinking of Bob Anderson.Last year, at the same time of day, Anderson crossed the intersection on his morning walk.The recent retiree knew about Tampa Bay’s reputation for killing pedestrians, even telling his daughter-in-law to be careful when she moved to the area several years ago. “I’ve always been extra cautious around crosswalks, parking lots and crossing the road in general, thanks to his warnings,” Audrye Anderson told me in an email.Like most people, Bob Anderson knew that drivers are supposed to yield to pedestrians who enter a crosswalk. Too often, they don’t. They either don’t care or are going too fast to react.Anderson paid for it with his life.He had made it about two-thirds of the way into the crosswalk when an Uber Eats driver in a blue Ford pickup slammed into him. The impact tore off one of Anderson’s shoes. His body ended up about 100 feet from the intersection. The 67-year-old died at a nearby hospital.Before impact, Anderson was in the crosswalk for about 3.5 seconds, according to footage from a surveillance camera on a nearby building. That’s at least 3.5 seconds for the driver to have seen Anderson and slowed down. But he couldn’t. Why? He told investigators that he was looking to his right when Anderson “suddenly appeared” in front of him in the crosswalk. He was also traveling at 49 to 54 mph in this 30 mph zone, the investigation found. He was speeding — by a lot. Less than a year earlier, a police officer had issued the same driver a ticket for going 63 mph in a 40 mph zone. He hadn’t learned his lesson, and it cost an innocent pedestrian his life.Every driver gets momentarily distracted. Speed limits mitigate the inevitability of human error, at least to some extent, but a speeding and distracted driver is a special kind of danger. If the Uber Eats driver hadn’t been speeding, could he have avoided hitting Anderson? Even if he had hit Anderson while going the speed limit, would Anderson still be alive? The research tells us Anderson’s chances would have been much better.Instead, the driver chose to drive far too fast. In so doing, he added Anderson to the long roll of Tampa Bay’s dead pedestrians. The next day, a steady smattering of cars and trucks drives along Sixth Street near 32nd Avenue in south St. Petersburg. The area includes sidewalks, a new apartment complex, an auto repair shop, the bar One-Eyed Kellee’s, and a small extended care hospital. The speed limit is 35 mph. It’s a popular route for cyclists ― and speeders.In half an hour, I pinged 126 vehicles with the radar gun. More than 100 exceed the speed limit; over half are traveling at least 5 mph over. 45 mph 49 mph 52 mph The familiar roar of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle moves up the street. 54 mph The behavior doesn’t surprise Bob Griendling. In 2021, a distracted driver smashed into him just a few yards from where I’m standing. Griendling never saw it coming. He was pedaling his bike south, and then he was sprawled on the pavement with a broken scapula and pelvis and a traumatic brain injury.A small rear-facing video camera mounted to Griendling’s bike captured the crash. Even knowing what is about to happen, the footage is shocking. On first viewing the video, I blurted out “no, no, no” as the car approaches, as if my protestations would magically change the outcome, somehow keeping Griendling safe.The driver was going too fast to stop in time.“Sir, you pulled out in front of me,” the driver can be heard telling Griendling. The video, however, shows Griendling maintaining a steady line until he’s hit. The clip ends with just Griendling’s motionless hand resting on the sun-soaked asphalt.“My life changed that day,” he told me recently.In the hospital, Griendling’s brain filled with fluid, forcing surgeons to drill holes in his skull to relieve the pressure and the blinding headaches. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was angry and depressed for more than a year. He wondered whether the driver hit him on purpose or was just distracted. He still doesn’t understand why the police spoke to the driver but never to him. Police issued the man a citation for careless driving. That was it.Griendling, now 77, walks with a limp and pain in his hip. He remains unsteady on his feet. He had dreams of cycling into his 90s. Now, he only rides indoors. Even four years later, reliving the crash can make it hard for him to sleep.“I’m not past it and might never be,” he said. “I wonder if he had been driving slower and paying more attention, what might have been.”Griendling is one of the thousands of pedestrians and cyclists who survive vehicular violence but suffer for the rest of their lives. We know how to prevent many of these crashes — more speed cameras, better road designs, improved driver education and politicians with the will to act. Griendling would add more enforcement of existing laws and harsher penalties for careless drivers.“Americans seem to have little sympathy for vulnerable road users,” Griendling said. “I think it might have something to do with our sense of entitlement to personal freedom, no matter what the cost to others.”It doesn’t help that so many of our roads are designed for speed — straight, with wide lanes and too few cues to slow down. Road engineers know it. Most drivers feel it. Narrower lanes, crosswalk curbs that jut into the roadway, landscaping in the median, and crosswalk lights that turn red all prompt drivers to ease off the gas pedal. So do lower speed limits where pedestrians are present. Increased traffic enforcement helps, too. (More on that in a future column.)The tools for making roads safer for drivers and pedestrians are already available. We just have to embrace them. A few minutes after the Harley-Davidson blew through the 35 mph zone, a slate gray Nissan sedan sped by. 61 mph My unscientific experiment with the radar gun wasn’t all bad news. Most drivers I tracked obeyed the speed limit, or at least came close. And at least a few of the safety upgrades in several areas, including lane narrowing and reduced speed limits, appear to have slowed traffic. Tampa’s Bayshore Boulevard and its iconic sidewalk and balustrade hug the bay on one side and multimillion-dollar mansions and high-rises on the other. The road has been the scene of a few of the area’s most notorious pedestrian crashes, including a drunken driver in a Pinch A Penny truck who killed a man out for his daily walk in 2020. Two years earlier, a teen in a Mustang suspected of racing another car at more than 100 mph slammed into a mother and her 21-month-old daughter.Since then, planners lowered the speed limit on part of the road from 40 mph to 35 mph. They also installed pedestrian crossing lights, additional traffic signals and electronic speed signs that flash when drivers exceed the speed limit. On a recent Thursday morning, I spent an hour at three locations on Bayshore. More than 95% of the cars were within 5 mph of the speed limit. Of course, a few hours isn’t a long time on a road that gets between 22,500 and 36,500 vehicles a day.However, the city’s research also revealed that most drivers follow the rules on this stretch. In recent years, the total number of crashes peaked in 2019 and has generally trended downward since then, the city said. But crashes still occur. Some of the leading causes: Drunken, distracted and aggressive driving — and speeding.“As with many things in life, a small number of people still make bad choices from time to time that can have serious consequences,” said Joshua Cascio, communications and public outreach coordinator for Tampa’s infrastructure and mobility department. “While crashes have trended down since 2022, even one is too many.”One is too many. We shouldn’t think of that as just a throwaway line. Zero pedestrian deaths is possible. Jersey City has more residents than St. Petersburg and, in 2023, had no pedestrian or driver deaths on city-controlled streets. Oslo, the capital of Norway, has more residents than Tampa and St. Petersburg combined — and zero pedestrian deaths in 2019. Same for Helsinki, Finland — more populated than Tampa and St. Petersburg, with zero pedestrian deaths.Those places viewed pedestrian violence as preventable. They didn’t accept the carnage as a cruel fact of life. Instead, they prioritized saving innocent lives, and it worked. We should do the same.My last stop was the crosswalk near the Rolling Oats store on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street in St. Petersburg. Cars roll by north and south, mostly obeying the 35 mph speed limit. Mostly.A few minutes later, a black Ram pickup speeds past. 51 mph And then a blue sedan. Also, 51 mph A woman carrying a green bag full of groceries approached the crosswalk. She paused a moment and then pressed the button that triggered the flashing yellow lights. A sedan blew through the crosswalk, the yellow light reflecting off the windshield. 47 mph Thankfully, she saw the car coming. “Sometimes they just don’t stop,” said Marylin Green, 63. Too true, sometimes with tragic results. A few years ago, in the same crosswalk, a driver hit Anne McLaughlin, throwing her against the car’s windshield. She ended up 40 feet away, lying on her back with a visible head injury. The driver said he had looked down at the navigation app on his phone, which was in the car’s cupholder. He did not see McLaughlin or the crosswalk’s flashing yellow lights until it was too late. By the time he looked up, he was going too fast to stop. The 25-year-old woman died on the pavement.McLaughlin’s parents described her as kind, with a silly sense of humor. She enjoyed the beach and playing tennis and had recently opened a clay studio. She loved her dog, Bella. Near the crosswalk, the memorial to McLaughlin’s life and death faded in the sunshine. A white Ford pickup whizzed past. 48 mph For this column, the Tampa Bay Times rented a Stalker Pro radar gun to track vehicle speeds. The device was tested with a tuning fork for accuracy. We also stood next to three separate electronic speed signs to ensure the speeds on the signs matched the speeds indicated by the radar gun. The Stalker Pro measures speeds to one-tenth of a mile per hour, though we rounded the speeds up or down to the closest whole number.This is the second part in a Times series about pedestrian safety. Read the first part here .

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