JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There has been sadness in Northwest Jacksonville after a boy was struck and killed by a car while riding an electric scooter this week.
It happened Tuesday night on Rolling River Boulevard near Dunn Avenue and New Kings Road.
Now community leaders are coming together to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.
“Anytime you get a child hit by a vehicle it’s always a tragedy and no parent would want that for their child,” Emile Delerme said. “Everybody here in the community is feeling it. I’m still feeling it from last night.”
News4JAX learned the child turned 14 years old last month and recently moved to Jacksonville from South Carolina.
Delerme is president of the Rolling River Homeowner’s Association. He was joined by city councilman Reggie Gaffney who said after the holidays he plans to get city workers in the area to push for making the road safer. In fact, Gaffney said he’s unsuccessfully in the past worked on petition drives to lower the speed limit in the area.
“This is what we’re gonna do,” Gaffney said. “I’m gonna draft an ordinance to ask my colleagues to be able to put them down because for the last two hours we’ve been literally trying to slow cars down around here.”
Investigators said it appears the child didn’t check the street before trying to cross and the driver of the Camaro has been totally cooperative. Now the focus will be on making the road safer for both drivers and children.
Gaffney said one reason he’s been unsuccessful in the past with petition drives to lower the speed limit is that there are so many renters in the area, but he has to have homeowners sign any petition to give it weight.
Now he hopes introducing legislation to the full city council can make a difference.