The Epidemic of Pediatric Traffic Injuries in South Florida: A Review of the Problem and Initial Results of a Prospective Surveillance Strategy
S. Morad Hameed, MD, MPH,
Charles A. Popkin, BA,
Stephen M. Cohn, MD,
E. William Johnson, MPH and
the Miami Pediatric Traffic Injury Task Force
S. Morad Hameed, Charles A. Popkin, Stephen M. Cohn, and E. William Johnson are with the Divisions of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, Daughtry Family Department of Surgery, University of Miami School of Medicine Miami, Florida.
FIGURE 1——Problematic intersection at 2nd Ave and NW 67th St, Miami, Fla. During this site visit, numerous bystanders approached the investigators to find out when the city was planning to modify the control of this dangerous intersection. The visit was prompted by the injuries of a 5-year-old African American boy who had been holding his mother’s hand at the bus stop on the corner. The driver of car A, after waiting behind a bus ahead of the traffic lights, swerved onto the shoulder area at a high rate of speed and entered the intersection unaware that the light had changed. The ensuing events are depicted. After the collision with car B, the driver of car A lost control, striking the boy, his sister, and their mother. The car then struck a fence at the corner and proceeded toward the wall of a nearby house with the child still trapped underneath.
