Florida man dies after taking his riding lawn mower for a ride on a busy road
A riding lawn mower can do a lot. Like taking the laborious nature of using a push mower to cut a large lawn, for instance. It can’t, however, serve as a road-going vehicle to get you from point A to point B. Unfortunately, a Florida man recently demonstrated why a riding lawn mower simply doesn’t belong on public roads.
A 61-year-old Florida man died after a teenage driver slammed into his riding lawn mower on U.S. 29 in Escambia County
Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) reported that a 61-year-old man from McDavid, Florida, died in a car crash over the Fourth of July weekend. But this wasn’t a car-versus-car accident like the ones that kill an average of more than 40,000 people per year in the United States. No, this was a man riding a lawn mower on U.S. 29 when an Alabama teen slammed into him.
According to the FHP, the Florida man was cruising in the northbound lane of the road at the time. An 18-year-old driver in a Honda sedan approached the mower from the rear. Unfortunately, the young driver “did not see the riding mower in time to apply her brakes fully to avoid a collision,” per the FHP.
Now, according to AARoads, U.S. 29 gets up to 65 mph. Needless to say, the fastest production lawn mowers won’t do a lot more than 10 mph. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that the young Honda driver really didn’t have enough time to avoid hitting the mower-bound Florida man. The teen, however, wasn’t injured in the crash.
How is it legal to drive a riding lawn mower on a public road?
In short, it’s not. It’s illegal to drive a riding lawn mower on public roads. Florida is no exception. Your typical production riding mower lacks the basic requirements for street legality, like turn signals, a license plate, and brake lights.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. According to the Miami Herald, a man became something of a Lehigh Acres celebrity after he reportedly used his riding lawn mower to drive to a local 7-Eleven. He must have needed a Slurpee right that very minute. So much so that hopping in a registered car simply wouldn’t do.
