OPINION: Fact or Fake: Was 1 in every 4 pedestrian accident in Florida last year faked?

Jun. 7--The statement

A recent press release from Florida's chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, has this eye-opening factoid: 25% of all the vehicle vs. pedestrian accidents in 2018 were phony.

As Mo Szyslak -- Homer Simpson's bartender -- is fond of saying, "Whaaaa!!??"

In a June 3 press release announcing the arrest of a Kissimmee man on charges of faking an accident, Patronis said, "In 2018, there were 9,300 pedestrian crashes and of those, an estimated 25 percent were staged. Staged automobile accidents happen too often in Florida, and they drive up car insurance rates for honest motorists."

Either something was amiss or the state's cops reporters had collectively missed one heck of a story.

The Facts

Florida has a long, sordid history of faked auto accidents. News reports documented organized rings of criminals -- notably in South Florida -- whose members would smash into other cars and then, in league with crooked doctors and lawyers, would file phony insurance claims.

But that scam involved cars hitting other cars. The arrest cited by Patronis' office involved allegations that a Kissimmee elementary school teacher hurled himself onto the hood of a parked car in a Publix lot, claiming later that he had been hit.

Pedestrians faking collisions with cars have become fairly common in Russia, so much so that drivers have begun mounting dash-cams in their cars to prove they were being set up.

But insurance experts were befuddled when asked about the claim by the CFO that more than 2,300 pedestrian accidents had been faked.

"I'm not aware of any source that tracks pedestrian staged accidents as distinct from 'all' staged accidents," Lynne McChristian, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, wrote in an email.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau also said it had nothing.

"Bogus pedestrians who fling themselves onto the hoods of cars are infrequent in Florida," said Jim Quiggle, spokesperson and director of communications for the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. "The biggest action involves setup car wrecks, typically by fraud rings. Either way, bogus whiplash claims are yet more reasons that beleaguered Florida drivers pay some of the highest premiums in America."

Asked about the startling number of phony pedestrian accidents in Florida, the CFO's office eventually referred us to a revised press release on its website, which now said, "In 2018, there were 9,300 pedestrian crashes. An estimated 25 percent of staged accident referrals were criminally investigated."

Different, but now confusing.

The CFO's office explained that the original press release was incorrect. The state did not have some 2,500 people flinging themselves in front of cars last year.

Rather, 305 cases were referred to the state last year, either by insurance companies or individuals, as possible instances of staged accidents. Twenty-five percent of those cases -- about 75 -- were investigated by the state Division of Investigative and Forensic Services.

Those cases are not broken down into vehicle vs. vehicle accidents or vehicle vs. pedestrian. But insurance experts' unfamiliarity with fraud cases involving pedestrians suggest few cases fell into that pedestrian fraud category.

The bottom line

Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said in a press release that 25 percent of the 9,300 car crashes involving pedestrians in 2018 -- about 2,300 altogether -- were staged, or faked. Instead, only about 75 accidents of all types were investigated as staged, and an unknown number of those -- likely a small percentage -- involved pedestrians. We rate his statement Fake.

Rating categories: We rate statements as Fact, Mostly Fact, Mostly Fake or Fake. If you hear or read a statement you want checked go to orlandosentinel.com/factorfakeform

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