A 15-year-old Jacksonville girl is recovering from surgery after being struck by a car Wednesday on 103rd Street, an injury that left her with broken bones below the knee and her family pleading with drivers to slow down before another child gets hurt. Jada Taylor underwent surgery to repair the fractures, and her father says the physical wounds will heal faster than the fear the crash left behind.
A Father's Plea for Drivers to Pay Attention
“She's gonna have some scars, but she's going to be okay. But mentally, that's what we're gonna have to work on, it was traumatizing. It was a life-changing experience,” Derrick Taylor, Jada's father, told News4JAX. Taylor and his fiancée, Maalana Attar, spoke with the station about Jada's condition and their frustration with traffic along the corridor, urging drivers to pay closer attention to children and slow down near the school zone.
According to a witness account relayed by Attar, the driver involved had been stopped at a red light, became distracted, and accelerated into the intersection once traffic began moving, striking Jada before reacting. Attar said more than 20 students are typically near the area when school lets out, and both she and Taylor said there are no crossing guards along that stretch of 103rd Street. “It's over 20 some kids,” Attar said, adding that the intersection is too busy to go without one. Taylor said drivers are well aware of when students are dismissed, yet cars keep speeding through anyway.
A Corridor With a Troubled History
103rd Street has carried longstanding speeding complaints, and the crash fits a pattern residents and prior reporting have described for years. People living near the roadway have told First Coast News they often see crashes and speeding along the corridor, and one resident said trees planted in the median have cut down visibility at a nearby intersection. Another described regular speeding along Lambing Road, a 30-mph zone that intersects with 103rd Street.
That same stretch has a grim record. A United States Postal Service worker was killed while trying to turn onto Lambing Road from 103rd Street, and neighbors have said they want a traffic light installed at that intersection. Separately, the Florida Highway Patrol has said a Jacksonville man was killed in a crash on 103rd Street after running a red light. Hoodline has previously reported that a child was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after being struck by a vehicle at 103rd Street and La Ventura Drive East, and that a woman using a crosswalk on 103rd Street was killed in June after being hit by an SUV that had a green light, while a 25-year-old woman crossing the street was killed in a hit-and-run in March.
State Road Status Complicates Fixes
Jacksonville City Council District 9 representative Tyrona Clark-Murray acknowledged the ongoing safety problems on 103rd Street but said the city's hands are partly tied because the road falls under state, not city, jurisdiction. “103rd Street is a state road, not a city road,” Clark-Murray said, meaning any proposed changes require approval and coordination from the Florida Department of Transportation, with Jacksonville responsible for covering costs tied to the work. Clark-Murray said she has had multiple conversations with FDOT about improving safety on the corridor and that fixing the street has been a top priority since she joined the city council in 2022.
Clark-Murray's push for safety upgrades over other proposals is not new. Earlier this year, she told the Jacksonville Daily Record that 103rd Street needed increased safety measures rather than a proposed commercial improvement district for area businesses. News4JAX reached out to the Florida Department of Transportation for comment on Jada's crash and the broader safety concerns but did not receive an immediate response; the Florida Highway Patrol was also contacted for additional crash details.
A Pattern That Keeps Repeating
The concerns echo complaints raised elsewhere in Jacksonville after similar tragedies. Last year, a mother whose daughter attends Somerset Academy called for a crossing guard or pedestrian lights after a teenager died crossing Biscayne Boulevard near March Hen Drive on the Northside, struck by a northbound pickup truck, citing the school's enrollment of 600 children. For Taylor and Attar, the message is the same one families near 103rd Street have repeated for years: slow down before the next child who walks near that road doesn't walk away as fortunate as Jada.
