Rain turned deadly in Jacksonville early Wednesday, when two separate crashes killed two people and left another seriously injured. The first came about 3:10 a.m. on Pine Acres Road, where a man drove through a dead-end barricade and slammed into a concrete wall. He died of his injuries, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
About four hours later, just after 7:30 a.m., a Mercury Grand Marquis lost control on the Main Street Bridge, slid across lanes and collided head-on with a Mercedes. The driver of the Grand Marquis died, and the Mercedes driver was hospitalized in stable condition with severe injuries. The crashes marked Duval County's 60th traffic fatality of 2026.
The morning wrecks also put a sharper focus on a stretch of roadway that has seen trouble before. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office crash map shows nine crashes on the Main Street Bridge in the past year, and another nine just before the bridge. None of those earlier crashes were fatal, but the pattern on a wet morning was hard to miss.
Greg Driskell said the first rainfall after a dry spell can be especially dangerous because oils rise to the surface of newer asphalt before they wash away. That can make the road slicker than it looks, even when drivers think the rain is light. He urged motorists to slow down, keep their eyes open and drive defensively.
The question now is not whether the bridge can be dangerous in the rain. Wednesday's crashes answered that. The issue is whether drivers will treat the first minutes of a rainfall like the hazard they are, before another wet morning on a familiar road turns fatal again.
