JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For the first time, a local teen spoke to Action News about the crash she survived that took her mother's life in September of last year.
“Obviously that memory is just going to hit me every single time I walks across that street,” Orly Ohayon, crash survivor.
Her mom Esther Ohayon was killed last year at a Mandarin intersection while the two walked to Yom Kippur services.
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Stories like hers are the driving force behind the city’s new push for safer roads, a push Rabbi Yaakov Fisch has been working on for a long time.
“Many places that do have sidewalks, it's poorly lit not enough, lighting especially at night as the Mayor talked about daylightsaving time change,” said Rabbi Yaakov Fisch of Etz Chaim synagogue.
Thursday morning, the mayor announced a six month long campaign that aims to make walking and biking safer.
In the last two years alone there have been 942 pedestrian victims and 91 deaths.
Orly Ohayon’s injuries were so severe she still needs therapy.
“I just feel definitely a lot better there are still things I need to work on but overall thank God doing well,” Ohayon said.
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But today’s announcement is just the beginning…of a long road of changes ahead for Jacksonville so that Esther Ohayon’s death wasn’t in vain.
City leaders told Action News there will be analysis done on areas that have seen the most amounts of crashes. They will dissect how it happened and why it happened to hopefully prevent it from happening so frequently.