JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Action News Jax went through motorcycle crash numbers provided by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and found Duval County is the deadliest in the state for motorcycle crashes so far in 2025.
The mother of a Jacksonville man named on a recently installed memorial sign after dying in a motorcycle crash last year is urging drivers to be careful, especially after seeing Duval County’s crash cases become more severe.
“Losing my son has been exactly like living in a nightmare that won’t stop,” said Julia Harrell-Neugent, who lost her son, Jesse Lewis, in a motorcycle crash last October.
Florida Highway Patrol released a report of the crash Harrell-Neugent says her son was involved in, which says a man on a motorcycle was going north on I-295, merged into another lane, hit the back of an SUV at the Morse Avenue overpass and died.
“People will say that losing your child is the worst kind of pain that you can go through. I can attest that is absolutely true,” Harrell-Neugent said.
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Among the 10 counties with the most reported motorcycle crashes so far this year, Duval County has the highest number of deaths compared to the number of total crashes.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles says the county has seen 226 motorcycle crashes so far this year and 20 deaths among them, which shows an overall 8.8% deadly crash rate. The county with the highest number of motorcycle crashes of any other Florida county this year, Miami-Dade, has a 5% deadly crash rate based on the department’s numbers.
“It’s just all the way around a horrible thing,” said Harrell-Neugent.
Harrell-Neugent applied to get the memorial sign placed at her son’s crash site after it happened and she just found out it was installed, nine months later. She’s hoping to turn the pain of losing her son into prevention, encouraging as many drivers as possible to be careful.
“You don’t want to be the one that needs one of these signs for your loved one, you know, you don’t want this,” Harrell-Neugent said.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has a site dedicated to learning about staying safe both while riding motorcycles and while driving beside them. You can find it by clicking here and you can find the application for a memorial sign by clicking here.
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