Cape Coral shows hit-and-runs more common than you might think

Data from 2020 and 2021 shared by Cape Coral Police Department shows hit-and-run crashes are more common than you might think. Important to not is the data includes parking lot fender benders for hit-and-runs, which CCPD says can’t be excluded from the statistics.

Police have responded to several hit-and-runs in Cape Coral during the month of September. There have been 54 hit-and-runs in Cape Coral this month alone.

 

Thursday, a 12-year-old boy on his scooter was hit by a car that never stopped on the way to school. This happened at Ceitus Parkway and El Dorado Boulevard South. The child has serious facial injuries but will live.

In 2021, there have been 653 hit-and-runs in the city. There were 688 hit-and-runs recorded for all of 2020 in Cape Coral.

“We are not safe anymore,” Edna Izquierdo said. “It just makes me sad and angry, and I have no words. I don’t know what to think. People are just on a rush nowadays.”

Izquierdo has 13 grandchildren. She knows hit-and-runs happen too often in Cape Coral, and the crashes that involve kids hurt her deeply.

“It makes me angry,” Izquierdo said. “It makes me angry because it’s a child.”

Tuesday, someone hit a 17-year-old on his scooter on Hancock Bridge Parkway and Del Prado Boulevard.

There has been a single deadly hit-and-run in Cape Coral this year. That’s when a 53-year-old cyclist died after a driver hit him along NE Pine Island Road and left him hurt and alone.

“When you hit someone, there’s a chance that they died on impact,”” Javier Quintero said. “But if they are injured, getting them to the hospital could be the choice between life and death.”

If police find and arrest a suspect of a hit-and-run, the driver can face a minimum of four years in prison, with a maximum of 30 years.

“Where is the accountability?” Danielle Richardson said. “You run somebody over, and you just, ‘Fine. Oh, it’s fine and leave because you’re too busy? No. Nobody cares about anybody anymore.”