PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. - — Family members of a 15-year-old boy killed while walking to his school bus stop are continuing to push for change.
On Monday, Ethan Weiser’s uncle, Matt Croasmun, attended a Clearwater City Council Workshop. Although he wasn’t able to speak because the meeting did not allow for public comment, Croasmun connected one-on-one with a handful of city leaders. He plans to return for the full city council meeting on Thursday. Croasmun also hopes to speak with Pinellas County Commissioners and the Pinellas County School Board members.
Croasmun and his family worry if safety enhancements aren’t made soon, another person could get hurt or killed.
“There’s zero reason for there to be another Ethan that just is trying to be a sophomore in high school and just trying to live their life and they don’t get the opportunity because the driver couldn’t see them,” he elaborated.
Croasmun took cell phone video Monday morning showing just how dark Belleair Road is at around 6:40 a.m. That’s around the same time on Friday when his nephew, Ethan Weiser, was hit and killed walking across Belleair Road in Pinellas County to his school bus stop.
“It was really dark. I was expecting it, but it was literally even darker than I expected,” he explained.
Croasmun is hoping to petition for streetlights, crosswalks, fluorescent paint or other solutions. He is fighting for Ethan’s four younger siblings and other kids in the area to have one less worry.
“We want to make that worry ‘Hey, I didn’t turn in my homework’ not ‘Hey, can I beat this car before it gets to me?” he said.
Croasmun said Ethan’s school bus pick-up location forced the 15-year-old to cross the busy roadway. The Pinellas County School District says the bus stop meets state standards. Croasmun plans to ask school board leaders how bus stops are chosen and evaluated for safety.
“There are enough things in the world that we can’t control what we can control is kids feeling safe when they go to school,” Croasmun added.
Florida is one of the deadliest places in the nation for pedestrians and car crashes overall.
On average, two people are killed or seriously injured every day in traffic crashes in Pinellas County, according to Forward Pinellas. There were 107 people killed in car crashes in 2021 in Pinellas County. 85 were pedestrians or bicyclists, acccording to data from the Medical Examiner's Office serving Pinellas and Pasco Counties. So far, 2022 numbers from Forward Pinellas show around 70 people killed with four months left in the year.
Whit Blanton of Forward Pinellas is asking all local leaders to sign a resolution to prioritize projects that will make streets safer and get closer to a goal of zero fatalities by 2045.
Blanton spoke to Clearwater leaders Monday. The discussion was already planned before Ethan’s death and several other pedestrian crashes that occurred the week before. Yet, Blanton said the crashes add urgency to the mission of Forward Pinellas.
“We wouldn’t accept an airplane falling out of the sky every week and killing everyone aboard. And that’s the number of fatalities we have nationwide on our roadways and I just don’t think that’s acceptable,” Blanton said.
