NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — Only two bridges connect Amelia Island to the rest of the county: the Amelia River Bridge and Nassau Sound Bridge. A small section of the road before the Amelia River Bridge, between Yulee and the island, has been leaving drivers with constant windshield cracks for years.
Some still need their windshield replaced, but they’re worried about paying hundreds of dollars for the work.
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“It’s all a hassle,” Jim Bennett, who lives in Yulee and has had to replace more than three windshields in the last three years, said.
Like many other drivers in the area, Bennett has had to deal with back-to-back cracks driving along A1A between Old Nassauville Road and the Amelia River Bridge.
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“Right after we got the first one replaced, my wife was driving the car the very next day and it chipped again,” Bennett said.
Bennett now has to replace yet another windshield after a separate, recent crack he says happened on the same stretch of A1A.
Action News Jax’s Finn Carlin went to a Nassau County Facebook group with more than 46,000 members asking who else has had windshields cracked on the road. Hundreds of people responded and some were in the same situation as Bennett, needing windshield replacements and having a history of multiple cracks in a short period.
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Meshel Rubio, co-founder of Yulee-based Nassau Pressure Wash, is one of them.
“Up until a few weeks ago, we were still dealing with it pretty daily,” Rubio said.
Right now, there’s not only a crack in the side mirror of Rubio’s work van but there’s another in her windshield. She said she’s also dealt with windshields cracked on back-to-back days and has now had to shell out more than $800 to replace them.
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“It’s very frustrating because there’s nothing you’re doing to cause it, so you can’t change it,” Rubio said.
Ricky Cumberland, an auto glass tech at Nassau County-based Amelia AutoGlass, is the guy Rubio usually calls for the replacement. The thing is, he has had his own problems on the road.
“It’s very frustrating because it’s not cheap to replace a windshield multiple times in a year,” Cumberland said.
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Cumberland tells Action News Jax he’s not only had to do windshield repair jobs costing upwards of $1,200, but was called more than 1,000 times last year to replace a cracked windshield.
“I’ve had a ton of people, a ton of calls all the time. My phone is nonstop all day long,” Cumberland said.
Florida law doesn’t let insurance companies charge a deductible for certain drivers, meaning the insurance company has to pay to replace it if you have “comprehensive” coverage. This type of coverage insures your car from damage not from crashing into another car. If you’re not covered, AAA says windshield repairs can cost as much as $10,000, depending on the kind of car you have.
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You can file claims through the Florida Department of Transportation to get some of the cost covered, but this is what FDOT said it needs from drivers looking to make a claim.
- The date, location and circumstances of the damage
- Photos of the damage
- A police report documenting the damage, if you have one
But even then, FDOT said it still cannot guarantee it will fulfill your claim. It also said it can’t cover claims from road problems it is not aware have existed.
It’s worth noting FDOT did recently repave A1A in Nassau County between Old Nassauville Road and the Amelia River Bridge as part of a $4 million project. FDOT didn’t want to interview with us for this story but said drivers looking to make a claim can do so at the link here.
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