And as bad as Miami drivers might be, they're infinitely worse when you're sitting on top of two wheels instead of four. Last year alone, cyclists were hit 900 times in Miami-Dade County. And a new map compiled by personal injury lawyers Mark Kaire and David Heffernan shows exactly where those crashes are happening.
Kaire and Heffernan, both avid cyclists who have represented dozens of injured bicyclists over the years, say their firm put together the map using data from Florida's Integrated Report Exchange System from 2012 to 2016.
"We're trying to make people aware of the danger of biking in Miami and target some of the most dangerous intersections where there’ve been a lot of accidents,"
Despite the fact that crashes happen in almost every part of the
Rounding out the top five intersections are Eighth Street and Ocean Drive in South Beach, NE Second Avenue and NE Sixth Street in downtown Miami, NE Miami Place and NE 54th Street in Little Haiti, and Biscayne Boulevard and NE 29th Street in Edgewater.
"I guess the surprising thing is to see that it's really spread out everywhere," Heffernan says.
Both lawyers say they'd like to see Miami-Dade cities become bicycle-friendlier by doing things like adding bike lanes. Though some of the injured cyclists failed to wear helmets or have the proper safety gear, poorly designed roads also contribute to the problem,
"We've got Citi Bike stands throughout the city, and while it sounds great, we don't have the infrastructure," he says. "We lack bike lanes, bike paths, and awareness by motorists."
Heffernan says he'd like to see Miami get to a place where there's
"We've got a long way to go. There are a lot of drivers that hate cyclists and vice versa," he says. "But the law applies the same. We want to heighten awareness hopefully on both sides."