Florida has again landed on top of a list no state wants to lead, logging the nation’s highest rate of pedestrian fatalities involving drivers aged 65 and older. The new finding, drawn from five years of federal crash and licensing data, arrives as planners and safety advocates argue over how to tame some of the busiest and most hostile walking environments in the country.
The analysis, conducted by Kuzyk Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers and first reported by the Tampa Free Press, pulled from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and Federal Highway Administration figures for 2020-2024. Researchers found that Florida averaged about 97 pedestrian deaths per year in crashes involving drivers 65 and older. When measured against the state’s 4,091,674 licensed older drivers, that worked out to 2.37 fatalities per 100,000 older drivers, just ahead of Nevada at 2.35 and California at 2.31. That way of calculating older-driver pedestrian risk mirrors how federal safety programs apply FARS and Federal Highway Administration data, according to the FHWA.
“Florida’s #1 ranking for older-driver pedestrian deaths is a serious public safety concern that demands immediate attention from state and local leaders,” Mark Anderson, an attorney with Kuzyk, said in the firm’s release, as reported by the Tampa Free Press. He called for stronger licensing oversight, safer road design in areas with heavy foot traffic, and targeted public-awareness campaigns to help reverse the trend.
Statewide totals and metro trends
The older-driver numbers line up with a broader pattern: Florida, and several of its metro areas, remain hazardous places to walk. In its Dangerous by Design 2026 report, Smart Growth America ranked the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater region eighth among large metros for pedestrian fatality rate. Federal FARS tables show that Florida recorded 668 pedestrian deaths in 2024 alone, underscoring the state’s outsized toll. The same federal datasets allow analysts to pull out the share of those crashes involving older drivers.
What officials can do
State safety planners have already flagged older drivers as a key concern. In its FY2027 Highway Safety Matrix, FDOT ranks Tampa and several other Florida cities high on aging-road-user metrics. Federal guidance points to a menu of proven countermeasures that communities can adapt to local conditions, from lowering vehicle speeds and upgrading crosswalks to refining licensing policies for older drivers, according to the FHWA.
For residents and the millions of visitors who walk Florida’s retirement communities, neighborhood streets, and tourist corridors, the study is a blunt reminder that pedestrian safety problems are statewide, not just a big-city headache. Reversing the trend will require detailed data analysis, targeted engineering fixes, and sustained political will in Tallahassee and city halls across Florida.
