A 58-year-old Tampa man is dead after losing control of his Aston Martin on eastbound I-4, climbing out of the wrecked sports car, and then being struck by four vehicles as he tried to cross the highway on foot. The man suffered fatal injuries at the scene, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Troopers say the man was driving eastbound on I-4 when he lost control of the Aston Martin and collided with a crash attenuator near the ramp leading to SR-618, according to WFLA. A crash attenuator is a roadside safety device built to absorb a vehicle's kinetic energy during a collision, as FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported, citing FHP. After hitting the barrier, the driver got out of his car and attempted to cross the highway on foot, per the same report.
That decision proved fatal. Four separate vehicles struck the man as he crossed the travel lanes, and he died at the scene from his injuries, the station's report states. As first reported by Tampa Free Press, the crash unfolded in Hillsborough County along one of the region's busiest commuter corridors.
What Authorities Haven't Confirmed
Florida Highway Patrol has not released the man's name or said what caused him to lose control of the Aston Martin in the first place, according to FOX 13's report citing troopers. Investigators also had not confirmed the exact date or time the crash occurred, nor whether any of the four drivers involved in striking the man remained at the scene afterward, the same report notes.
Those unanswered questions leave a incomplete picture of exactly how the sequence of events played out once the man stepped into traffic. What is established, per FHP's account relayed by WFLA, is the basic chain: a single-vehicle crash into a highway safety barrier, followed by a pedestrian strike involving four vehicles in the same location.
Pedestrian Crashes on Florida Roads
The circumstances echo a broader pattern tracked by state regulators. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has reported that pedestrian-related crashes statewide climbed to 12,760 in 2025, marking a fifth consecutive year of increases, even as fatalities and severe bodily injuries from those crashes continued to decline for a third straight year.
Hillsborough County's stretch of I-4 has seen other pedestrian fatalities tied to multi-vehicle chain reactions. In a separate incident, a 23-year-old Tampa man died after a Hyundai Santa Cruz struck him in the travel lanes following an earlier collision between a Kia Sorento and a tractor-trailer that sent both vehicles into the center median, according to Tampa Bay 28. In that case, the tractor-trailer overturned in the median before the fatal pedestrian strike occurred.
No further details on the Aston Martin crash, including the driver's identity or the cause of the initial loss of control, had been made public as of the latest reporting.
