Pedestrian Accidents Involving Runners in Tampa

Tampa has a tremendous amount of running clubs, 5Ks, and marathons, so there are runners in those areas. Because Tampa has multiple military bases, there is always military personnel exercising in and around places like MacDill Air Force Base, the coastguard station, Sencomm, or Socom. With all this running potentially going on, an accident may happen making it critical that those involved contact a distinguished pedestrian accident attorney. An experienced injury attorney in Tampa can assist in building a claim and holding the negligent party responsible for any damages they caused.

Protect  for Runners

Pedestrian accidents involving runners in Tampa still happen, despite having well-laid outset of running paths. Intersections have markings with crosswalks. A number of the dense city areas have auditory and visual stops at crossings, so it is not only a little red hand or the little white person flashing but also an auditory that tells a person it is safe to walk or it is not safe to walk.

Tampa is good at having crosswalks at major intersections where pedestrians should be crossing. Master plan communities have been planned with runners in mind. For example, communities like Westchase, Waterchase, and some of the older communities like Hyde Park have been designed for outdoor activities with runners in mind.

The local beaches recognize the prevalence of runners and have running and pedestrian-friendly areas to prevent pedestrian accidents involving runners. The parks downtown, because downtown is becoming a lot more pedestrian-friendly, are starting to develop a lot of pedestrian-friendly and pedestrian safety features.

There are still a lot of older parts of Tampa that, because Tampa is an old city, do not have good pedestrian runner awareness. Runners have to be conscious of what is going on around them when they choose to run on areas like Ybor City, Lutz, South Tampa, or Soho.

Risks for Runners

Tampa specifically has narrow streets in its core city and, because of that, the traffic pattern is tight. The runners need to be aware that drivers are sometimes distracted by the density of the traffic flow. They have to make sure that when they are either crossing or moving, they recognize that they have to make eye contact with the driver to make sure the driver recognizes that they are there.

Many runners have a tendency to run with the flow of traffic. This is the wrong thing to do. In order to prevent pedestrian accidents involving runners in Tampa, an individual should be running against the flow of traffic so they can see cars coming as opposed to cars coming up behind them.

If a sign says “walk”, that does not mean that the driver also recognizes that. It is always best to heed a moment to make sure there is no traffic coming or nobody turning into his or her lane, because sometimes visibility is poor, especially in areas where traffic is parked on the streets. Sometimes pedestrians are not readily visible to a car because their view is blocked by a parked vehicle.

After a Pedestrian Accident

If they are involved in pedestrian accidents involving runners in Tampa, they should follow up with law enforcement to make sure that their incident was properly documented. They should also seek medical attention immediately. Even though they may not think that they are seriously injured, there may be internal injuries that are not readily apparent. They should make sure to follow up with law enforcement to make sure that the police reports are completed. An individual should find an attorney at his or her earliest convenience that is trained to do this type of work.