Fort Lauderdale Train Accident Lawyer
A crossing, a platform or a train did what it should never have done, and somebody in your family is badly hurt or gone. We can take it from here. Call 954-522-5800 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Broward County since 1993.
Train Accident claims in Fort Lauderdale
The railroad has its own police, its own investigators and its own recorders, and all of them were working on this before anybody spoke to you. Meanwhile you are dealing with the hospital, the time off, and an account of events built entirely by the company involved. Getting at the signal and recorder data is our job, and we start the day you call.
The FEC corridor carries both freight and high-speed passenger service straight through downtown Fort Lauderdale and up the coastal cities, crossing surface streets at grade rather than over or under them. The Tri-Rail corridor runs further west on its own alignment. Crossing claims turn on the physical condition of the crossing, the gates and signals, sight lines and vegetation, and the timing of the train's warning, and the evidence comes from the railroad's own event recorder and forward-facing camera rather than from witnesses. Those records exist and they are obtained by demand, promptly, because retention is not indefinite.
Broward has two rail corridors, and the eastern one crosses city streets at grade through downtown Fort Lauderdale. These claims turn on the crossing, the gates and the warning rather than on braking. The locomotive event recorder and forward camera decide most of them, and the duty to preserve that data runs out a year after the collision.
What to do after a train accident in Fort Lauderdale
- Photograph the crossing before anything is repaired. The gates, the lights, the crossbuck, the road surface over the rails, and the view up the track in both directions from where a driver actually sits. A crossing gets attended to after a collision, and the version of it that caused the collision stops existing. Stand back far enough to show what was growing beside the track and what was parked near it, because an obstructed sight line is measured from a point rather than described.
- Get the demand out for the event recorder and the forward camera. A locomotive records speed, throttle, brake applications and horn, and most carry a forward-facing camera. Under 49 CFR § 229.135 the duty to preserve that data expires one year from the date of the accident unless the agency asks for it. None of it is automatic. Sending the written demand is the most useful thing done in the first month.
- Write down what you heard, and when you heard it. Whether a horn sounded, how long before the train arrived, and whether the lights were flashing when you reached the crossing. Do it the same day and take it from every passenger separately. Horn timing is regulated to the second, so an account written at the time is evidence rather than a memory argued over at a deposition two years later.
- Get medical care the same day. Rail collisions deliver more force than road collisions, and the injuries that decide a case are frequently not the ones treated at the scene. Head injury, spinal injury and internal bleeding all present late. A gap between the collision and the first medical visit is the most common argument made about how badly somebody was hurt.
- If you work for the railroad, get advice before the statement. A claim agent will reach an injured railroad employee quickly, sometimes at the hospital, and will ask for a recorded account and a signature. Railroad employees are not in the state compensation system. They are in a federal negligence claim worth considerably more, and what gets said in the first hours is used in it. Ask for time.
Where these happen in Fort Lauderdale
The two corridors through Broward behave nothing alike, and which one a collision happened on changes the defendant, the evidence and the ceiling on the claim.
-
The FEC corridor through downtown and the coastal cities
The eastern alignment runs a few blocks inland from Federal Highway and crosses the east-west streets at grade rather than over or under them.
- Freight and high-speed passenger service sharing the same crossings
- Crossings in built-up blocks where traffic can queue back over the rails
- Quiet zone status, which decides what the absence of a horn means
- A private corridor owner and a private passenger operator, neither carrying a damages cap
-
The commuter corridor west of I-95
The western alignment carries commuter and intercity passenger trains on its own right of way, with stations rather than street-level platforms.
- A publicly operated commuter service, which brings sovereign immunity limits and a pre-suit notice condition
- Station, platform and gap claims, which are premises claims rather than crossing ones
- Freight movements on the same track outside commuter hours
- A different maintenance regime and a different records custodian from the coastal corridor
-
The New River crossing
The rail bridge over the New River is a movable structure in the middle of a working waterway and a working street grid.
- Bridge and gate sequencing, which backs traffic up onto nearby crossings
- Marine and rail schedules interacting at the same point
- Pedestrian movement around a corridor that is fenced in some stretches and not others
- Structure and approach maintenance, which sits with the corridor owner rather than the city
-
Where people cross on foot
A substantial share of Broward rail deaths involve somebody walking, not driving, and the analysis does not end with the word trespass.
- Fencing, and where it stops
- Informal crossings the railroad knew people used
- Sight lines and lighting on the approach a person actually took
- Horn and bell use where the corridor runs through a quiet zone
What causes them
- Gates and lights that never activated, which the federal rules treat as a failure with its own required response
- Warning systems that activated late, activated partly, or stopped before the train had cleared
- Crossings marked with a crossbuck sign alone, with no lights and no gate
- Vegetation, parked rail equipment and structures blocking the view up the track
- Humped and rough crossing surfaces that ground a low vehicle out on the rails
The injuries we see, and what each one turns on
Why these injuries sit at the severe end
A loaded freight train needs close to a mile to stop from track speed, so by the time an engineer sees a vehicle on the crossing the outcome is already decided. The energy is not comparable to a road collision, and the pattern reflects it: these cases are catastrophic or fatal far more often than any other practice on this site, and the survivable ones tend to end in permanent impairment rather than recovery.
Traumatic brain injury
A brain injury requires neither a loss of consciousness nor an abnormal scan, and the deficits show up in memory, concentration, sleep and temper. Families notice before the injured person does. It is proved with neuropsychological testing and the treating record over months rather than with the imaging taken on the day.
Spinal cord injury and paralysis
The injury that changes every part of a life at once, and the one where a settlement has to carry decades of care rather than a course of treatment. A life care plan costed by a professional separates a real figure from a guess, and it is built from the treating physicians rather than an insurer’s estimate.
What Florida law requires you to prove
A federal layer sits over the state claim
Railroad safety is regulated federally, and 49 U.S.C. § 20106 requires that regulation be nationally uniform so far as practicable. Carriers read that as ending state claims and it does not. The same statute preserves a state action for injury or death where the railroad failed to meet the federal standard of care, failed to follow its own rule made under a federal regulation, or breached a compatible state requirement. Which of the three a case runs on is decided early, and it shapes what gets asked for.
The warning system, and what happens when it fails
A system that fails to activate is covered by 49 CFR § 234.105, and one that activates when it should not by 49 CFR § 234.107. Both require the railroad to warn its crews and law enforcement and to protect the crossing another way: with a flagger for each direction of traffic a train may run at normal speed, with partial coverage it may not exceed 15 miles per hour, and with none it must stop and be flagged through. Whether that happened is documented.
The horn, and the places it is silent
Under 49 CFR § 222.21 the horn begins at least 15 seconds and no more than 20 seconds before the locomotive enters a crossing, in a pattern of two long, one short and one long. Communities can establish quiet zones where routine sounding stops, and 49 CFR § 222.35 sets what has to be in place first, including gates and flashing lights to the national standard and signs telling drivers no horn will sound. South Florida has a great many. Quiet zone status changes what a missing horn means, so it is established first rather than last.
What the driver owed, and what a claim is worth
Florida drivers must stop between 15 and 50 feet from the nearest rail when a signal warns of an approaching train, when a gate is down, when a flagger signals, or when a train is plainly visible and in hazardous proximity, under Fla. Stat. § 316.1575. That duty sits alongside the railroad’s. Fault is shared under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, where somebody more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing, and most claims arising on or after March 24, 2023 carry a two-year deadline under Fla. Stat. § 95.11.
Railroad employees are in a different system entirely
A railroad worker hurt on the job is not in workers’ compensation. Under 45 U.S.C. § 51 the carrier answers for injury resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of its people or a defect in its equipment, track or roadbed. Negligence has to be shown, which compensation does not require, and in exchange the claim pays full damages including pain and suffering. Under 45 U.S.C. § 53 the worker’s own carelessness reduces damages but never bars the claim, and counts for nothing where a safety statute violation contributed. The deadline is three years under 45 U.S.C. § 56, in state or federal court.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide train accident page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Broward County
The railroad has investigators at the scene within hours and a defense file open the same day. The evidence that answers it is held almost entirely by them, which is why the first month is spent asking for it in writing.
- The locomotive event recorder, which holds speed, throttle, brake application and horn use
- Forward-facing camera footage, and inward footage where the equipment carries it
- Dispatch records, radio traffic and the crew’s own reports
- Signal maintenance and inspection records for that crossing, and any history of activation failure or false activation there
- Whether the crossing sits inside a quiet zone, and what safety measures were required before it was approved
- Vegetation control records and photographs of the sight line from a driver’s eye height
- Crossing surface and approach maintenance records, which may sit with the corridor owner, a contractor or the road authority
- Business and traffic camera footage along the corridor, most of it overwritten within a month
The preservation demand goes out before anything else. Recorder data carries a federal preservation duty that expires one year from the date of the accident, and a crossing gets repaired long before that.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Fort Lauderdale is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled train accident claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
-
Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. Full profile →
How insurance companies handle these claims
A railroad does not behave like a car insurer. It has its own investigators on scene within hours, its own claim agents, and lawyers who defend these cases for a living and have defended them at this exact crossing before.
- The driver went around the gate, so that is the end of it
- The first position taken, and it decides nothing on its own. Florida divides the blame rather than barring a claim, so what a driver did is weighed against what the crossing was like: whether the gate had been down an unreasonable time at a crossing where that happens routinely, whether the lights had a history of false activation that taught people to ignore them, and whether the approach left anywhere to wait.
- Federal law preempts everything you are alleging
- Raised in almost every one of these cases and correct in some. The same statute that requires national uniformity preserves a claim that the railroad missed the federal standard of care, failed to follow its own rule made under a federal regulation, or breached a compatible state requirement. Preemption shapes which theory the case runs on rather than ending it.
- The train could not possibly have stopped
- Usually true and usually beside the point. A freight train needs close to a mile, which is why the case is about the warning rather than the braking: whether the gates worked, whether the horn sounded when it should have, whether the sight line was clear, and whether the speed suited the protection there. Stopping distance is the reason the railroad’s duties sit upstream of the moment.
What a claim can include
Medical care, past and future
Everything already billed and what the treating physicians say is still ahead. In this practice the future half is usually the larger one, because the surviving injuries are permanent.
A life care plan where the injury is permanent
Attendant care, equipment, home and vehicle modification, prosthetics replaced on a schedule and the surgeries still to come, costed by a professional over a lifetime rather than estimated.
Lost income and lost earning capacity
Wages missed, and separately what somebody can no longer earn for the rest of a working life. For a railroad employee the calculation runs against a specific pay scale and a specific pension, which makes it more concrete than in most cases.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Fort Lauderdale
A Broward rail case is filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit at the Broward County Courthouse, and this office has worked in it since 1993. These files usually name more than one defendant at once, a corridor owner, an operator, a contractor and sometimes a public body, and keeping them in a single case is what stops each of them pointing at the others for two years.
Richard Pravato has been Board Certified in Civil Trial law by The Florida Bar since 2004. The Bar lists 861 lawyers in the state holding it against a membership over 109,000. What it means in practice is that the other side knows the file can go in front of a jury, and files that can go to trial are priced differently from files that cannot.
The first conversation is free. We are paid out of the recovery or not at all, and if we do not think there is a claim worth bringing we will tell you that rather than take it.
Fort Lauderdale train accident questions
The gates were down and traffic was backed up over the tracks. Whose fault is that?
Possibly more than one party’s. Where a crossing approach is short and the road beyond it backs up, a driver can end up on the rails with nowhere legal to go, and how the signals are timed against the traffic signals nearby is a design question rather than a driver error. Signal timing records, the crossing’s history and any prior complaints about the same queue we can get all of it.
There was no horn. Does that prove anything?
It depends entirely on whether the crossing is in a quiet zone, and much of the corridor through Broward is. Inside one, routine horn sounding stops by design, and the claim moves to whether the gates, lights and signage that had to be in place before the quiet zone was approved were working. Outside one, horn timing is regulated to the second and the recorder shows exactly when it sounded.
How long do we have, and what happens first?
Most claims carry a two-year filing deadline, but the deadline that actually decides these cases arrives earlier. Recorder data, camera footage, signal records and the physical condition of the crossing all have their own clocks, and several of them run in weeks. The first work is written preservation demands, not a filing.
The crossing gates were down. Is the case hopeless?
Not automatically. Whether the gates and lights operated correctly, how much warning time they gave, whether the train sounded its horn as required, and whether sight lines were obstructed are all separate questions with documentary answers. The gates being down is where the inquiry starts, not where it ends.
Can the event recorder data be obtained?
Yes, through the litigation process, but only if it still exists. Retention is limited and the railroad has no obligation to keep it absent a demand. That is why a preservation letter in the first days matters more in a railroad case than in almost any other.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
More in Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale Personal Injury Lawyer
Everything we handle in Broward County, and where our office is.
View →Fort Lauderdale Construction Accident Lawyer
Florida construction accident lawyers.
View →Fort Lauderdale Birth Injury Lawyer
Florida birth injury lawyers.
View →Fort Lauderdale Uber and Lyft Accident Lawyer
Florida Uber and Lyft accident lawyers.
View →
Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 2101 W Commercial Blvd, Suite 1500, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309.