JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Residents in Jacksonville\u2019s Oceanway neighborhood are calling for traffic changes after an 11th-grade student at First Coast High School was hit by a car Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
The student is expected to be OK, according to information provided to News4JAX.<\/p>\n
Amy Elliott, who lives near the school, said she and her daughter saw the student sitting in the street after the crash.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was frightening,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cMy daughter and I both got chills right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elliott said drivers often move through the area while students are crossing the street, or pressure them to hurry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are cars that are constantly going through it anyway or coming up on the kids while they\u2019re hurrying them along,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating, very frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
The area has a pedestrian-activated traffic beacon, but Elliott said drivers do not always slow down when students press the button.<\/p>\n
Johnetta Andres, who moved to the area about a year ago, said traffic is especially heavy near the shopping center, Publix and a newly opened Chick-fil-A.<\/p>\n
Andres said she believes the area needs another traffic light.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we have one red light, but another red light needs to be here right in front of the gas station,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She also urged drivers to slow down as they approach the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great that the school is there, but everybody just needs to slow down so that we\u2019re all safe,\u201d Andres said. \u201cThe kids are safe, we\u2019re safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elliott said drivers should be willing to wait a few seconds for students to cross the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about your own children or your own grandchildren,\u201d she said. \u201cSafety should always be first. A couple of seconds waiting for a child to cross the street should happen. We should not be rushing children.\u201d<\/p>\n
News4JAX reached out to the city of Jacksonville, Duval County Public Schools and the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office for information about possible improvements to traffic conditions outside the school. We will update with responses when we get them.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Residents in Jacksonville\u2019s Oceanway neighborhood are calling for traffic changes after an 11th-grade student at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[48092,94494,116,118,117,1872],"class_list":["post-396515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-duval-county-schools","tag-first-coast-high-school","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}