Car Accidents on the Rise in Miami Express Lanes

Having represented dozens of victims of car accidents in Miami who’ve been involved in a car accident within the express lanes of I-95, personal injury attorney Joseph Lipsky knows too well the dangers drivers face while traveling within those express lanes. Now a local study demonstrates that Miami’s express lanes are especially dangerous given the lack of a sufficient emergency shoulder, which is forty percent narrower than the one which existed prior to the construction of the express lanes.

In fact, the widest portion of the express lane’s shoulder is actually narrower than an ordinary parking spot. This narrow safety zone results in disabled or stopped vehicles protruding into the inner most travel lane, resulting in an impediment for approaching drivers. The Florida Highway Patrol is also aware of the dangers the narrow shoulder presents for law enforcement officers who must make traffic stops within the express lanes. Those officers, whose lives are already in peril when they have to exit their vehicles along a standard highway, face an overly dangerous condition of speeding drivers and having no place safe to stand.

An additional danger presented by the express lanes is drivers who ignore the plastic dividers and cross into and out of the express lanes without regard for traffic in adjoining lanes. In the past year alone, the highway patrol has arrested over 150 drivers for recklessly crashing through the dividers. Sadly, at least four motorists have wrongfully died due to another driver crashing through the dividers and causing an accident.

The study revealed that most accidents occur during rush hour and that the deadly collisions generally occur after 10 at night. Having seen too often the life altering affects these deadly collisions have on families, we remind all motorist to stay in the lane they’ve chosen to travel in, and that the desire to move to a briefly faster moving lane presents a danger not only to yourself, but to everyone on the road.