3 Crashes in 13 Months: This Cyclist Has to Risk His Life Just to Go to Work
Fletcher Williams at the intersection in Bradenton, Florida, where he was struck by a car while riding his bicycle. (Photo by Ben Abramson.)
All over North America — and probably in your own community — people are getting hurt because of dangerous street design. Fortunately, there are also people fighting to make these dangerous streets safer. Strong Towns Local Conversation leader Danny Williams is one of these people. In 2023, he spearheaded a Crash Analysis Studio, and he continues to advocate for safer streets today. Strong Towns exists to help these people, both by providing resources and by amplifying their stories.
So, when Danny told us that his son Fletcher had been struck by a car for the third time in a year, I asked them to meet me at the scene of the crash for an interview. While standing at the intersection (14th Street West and 57th Avenue West in Bradenton, Florida) talking about the crash that sent Fletcher Williams to urgent care and mangled his bicycle, we witnessed the danger firsthand:
A pedestrian who was crossing with a walk signal was almost struck by a car that was making a right turn on red (a similar scenario to Fletcher’s crash).
A car that was making a right turn on red was almost struck by a northbound car.
Two vehicles drove several feet onto the sidewalk while making U-turns (Florida roads often require U-turns to navigate). They did so only steps away from where we stood.
Broken glass and plastic from previous crashes littered the bike lane.
This place is inhumanely dangerous, and every moment spent here makes you feel like a prey animal at the watering hole. Yet, the people who live and work here have no choice but to navigate it.
Fletcher Williams was on his bicycle returning from work at 6:30 a.m., traveling westbound on 57th Avenue. He proceeded into the crosswalk with a walk signal, where he was immediately struck by a car turning right. “He [the driver] was probably looking at the traffic to his left to see if anyone's coming. And then he just hits me off my bike.”
Damage to Fletcher Williams’ bike at the scene of the crash. (Photo by Danny Williams.)
It wasn’t the first time that a crash occurred at this intersection. Fletcher said a high school student had recently been struck while walking and suffered injuries severe enough to require hospitalization. He pointed to a nearby utility pole that had been felled in a crash for several weeks, preventing people from activating the walk signal.
It also wasn’t the first time that Fletcher had been hit by a car. In another crash in late 2023, he was struck in a crosswalk at an intersection with a stop sign. The driver stopped, but only to drag Fletcher’s bike out from under his car before leaving him injured at the scene. Fletcher’s father mapped the crashes, all within a half-mile radius.
Fletcher Williams has been struck by a car while riding a bicycle three times in 13 months. Crash #1 occurred on 10/8/23. Crash #2 occurred on 12/10/23. Crash #3 occurred on 11/12/24. (Graphic by Danny Williams.)
Fletcher gives a blunt assessment of the landscape that keeps harming him as he’s trying to go about his daily life: “Everything here is awful.” Some of it is attributable to poor driving, “which is why insurance rates are way higher than usual, and this place has a lot of traffic crashes.” But he also routinely observes flaws in infrastructure and design. “There's a spot down there where the line between the intersection isn't even straight. You have to [adjust] to get from one side to the other,” which results in frequent crashes.
During our conversation, a cyclist stopped at the corner and pushed the crosswalk button. He said that, unless there’s a completely separated bike path, he uses the sidewalks because “all the crap goes into the bike lane and it doesn’t get cleaned.”
Crash debris litters the bike lane at the intersection where Fletcher Williams was struck. Williams says the only time he’s seen the lanes cleared was after Hurricane Milton. (Photo by Ben Abramson.)
This is not just a traffic safety problem; it’s also an economic one. If you can’t afford a car, you must rely on public transportation and human power. You're forced to engage with a dangerous landscape. Fletcher would like to get an e-bike but worries that he’d just have a more expensive repair when it got hit like his other bikes: “It’s just gonna get destroyed, right?”
Meanwhile, he’s had repair and medical costs from multiple crashes, including one where he suffered a wrist injury that kept him from working for several weeks.
Danny Williams analyzes the scene of the crash with a level of detail that comes from leading a car-light lifestyle, being a citizen advocate at transportation and metropolitan planning organization hearings, and reading Strong Towns: “Look at the radius of this curve. This is another one built like an on-ramp even though it’s in the middle of town. So it's built to encourage people to go through here at speed, [instead of encouraging them] to stop, look at the light, and make a careful turn to the right.”
The police report for the crash was filed several days later. The driver was unlicensed but was not cited for the crash, with police assessing that the status of the light and walk signal was a matter of one operator’s word against another. Despite the frustrating process, Danny thinks it’s important for crash victims to register what happened to them. "Crashes are wildly underreported because, if you can, you're going to just limp away and go home because [it seems like] there's no point to hang around. We only hung around to make sure we were a statistic that was noted on that corner.”
Even if reporting crashes to the authorities doesn't prompt immediate change, crash victims are not helpless. Anyone can conduct a Crash Analysis Studio, regardless of their level of experience or expertise. This free course will teach you how to analyze a dangerous location and create a report with concrete safety recommendations. Giving this report to local officials can help them shake off their own feelings of helplessness and take immediate action to make your city’s streets safer.
To learn more about the Crash Analysis Studio and how to make your city's streets safer, join us on Wednesday, January 15, at noon EST for a free webinar with the Vision Zero Network. Click here to register.
Ben Abramson is a Staff Writer at Strong Towns. In his career as a travel journalist with The Washington Post and USA TODAY, Ben has visited many destinations that show how Americans were once world-class at building appealing, prosperous places at a human scale. He has also seen the worst of the suburban development pattern, and joined Strong Towns because of its unique way of framing the problems we can all see and intuit, and focusing on local, achievable solutions. A native of Washington, DC, Ben lives in Venice, Florida; summers in Atlantic Canada; and loves hiking, biking, kayaking, and beachcombing.