Miami · Miami-Dade County

Miami Car Accident Lawyer

A car accident turns a normal week upside down: pain, a wrecked car, time off work, and no idea who pays for any of it. We can take it from here. Call 844-643-7200 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Miami personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Miami-Dade County since 1993.

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Board Certified Richard Pravato, in civil trial law, since 2004.

14 days To see a doctor, or your own coverage pays nothing.

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Miami-Dade County Our Miami office takes these claims anywhere in the county.

In Miami-Dade County

Car Accident claims in Miami

The other driver caused it, and their insurer is already asking you for a recorded statement. Meanwhile you are working out how to pay the first medical bill, how to replace the paycheck you just missed, and how to get to work tomorrow without a car. Answering all of that is our job, and it starts the day you call.

The Palmetto Expressway, I-95 through downtown and US-1 along Brickell carry the crashes we see most in Miami-Dade, and the serious ones go to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial. Multi-vehicle collisions on those roads create a fault dispute among several insurers at once, each with an interest in pointing at someone else, which is a very different negotiation from a two-car crash.

Short answer

A Miami car accident claim turns on evidence rather than on the crash report, and you have two years from the crash for most collisions on or after March 24, 2023. In Miami-Dade a large share of these claims involve a commercial, rideshare or rental vehicle, which changes how much coverage is actually available.

What to do after a car accident in Miami

Call the police and get a report number. A crash with any injury or meaningful damage should have a report. It is not the last word on fault and it is not evidence at trial, but it fixes the date, the vehicles, the drivers and the witnesses, and a claim with no report is one the other insurer will treat as a dispute about whether it happened at all.
Photograph more than the damage. Both vehicles from the front and the side, the position they came to rest in, the debris, the skid marks, the signal, the sightline a driver would have had, and the businesses on the corner. Vehicles are moved within the hour and a scene is gone. What you photograph in ten minutes is frequently better evidence than anything anyone reconstructs later.
Get names before anybody leaves. The other driver’s insurer and policy number, and every witness who stopped. Witnesses do not wait for an officer to work through a queue, and a witness with no phone number is not a witness. Somebody who saw the light is worth more to a claim than any argument about it afterward.
See a doctor within fourteen days. This is the one deadline nobody hears about until it has passed. Your own coverage after a Florida crash is conditioned on being seen inside fourteen days, and adrenaline routinely hides a neck or a back injury for the first week. Going to be checked is not a claim that you are badly hurt.
Do not give the other insurer a recorded statement. You have to report the crash to your own carrier. You are not required to be recorded by theirs. That call comes within a day or two, while you are still working out how bad it is, and what you say about feeling all right is quoted back months later when you know a great deal more.

Where these happen in Miami

Miami-Dade puts more vehicles through fewer routes than anywhere else in Florida, and the crashes follow the expressways rather than the surface streets.

The Palmetto Expressway, SR 826

The busiest road in the county and the one that produces the most serious wrecks.
- Weaving between express and local lanes at speed
- Chain-reaction collisions where three or more vehicles complicate who pays what
- Serious injuries go to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial, which is where the records will be
I-95 and the Dolphin Expressway

Toll gantries, sudden slowdowns and a merge pattern locals treat as optional.
- Rear-end collisions in stop-and-go traffic, which are argued as low-speed and frequently are not
- Commercial vehicles working to schedules through the middle of the day
- Department of Transportation camera coverage exists and is overwritten quickly
Brickell and downtown

Dense turning traffic, buses, scooters and people crossing between blocks.
- Left turns across oncoming traffic at signals timed for a different era of volume
- Rideshare pickups and drop-offs in live lanes
- Building and business cameras are everywhere here, which is the best evidence in the county
US-1 and the southern corridors

A long main road with commercial driveways, transit and a mix of speeds.
- Vehicles crossing several lanes to reach a plaza entrance
- Transit and school buses, which bring a government defendant and a shorter notice deadline
- Motorcycles and scooters in traffic year round
Miami International and the airport ring

Rentals, shuttles, taxis and rideshare in a loop most drivers see once.
- Out-of-state and foreign drivers unfamiliar with the road and sometimes with the rules
- Rental agreements and out-of-state policies that decide who actually pays
- Permitted for-hire vehicles carry inspection and complaint histories that we can get
The causeways and the beach approaches

Bridges, tolls and traffic that changes character by the hour.
- Pedestrians and cyclists sharing crossings with turning vehicles
- Weekend and event volume that the road was not designed for
- Limited places to stop, which is why so many of these are reported late

What causes them

Left turns across oncoming traffic at intersections built for less volume than they now carry
Running a red light or a stop sign, where the signal timing itself we can get
A phone in a hand, which shows up in records long after a driver has denied it
Impairment, and the separate claim a bar or a host can face for serving somebody
Speed that was legal and wrong for the conditions, which is most afternoons in a Florida wet season

The injuries we see, and what each one turns on

Head and brain

A brain injury does not require losing consciousness and a normal CT does not rule one out. What follows is memory, concentration, sleep and temper, and it is usually the people around the injured person who notice first. Those claims are proved with neuropsychological testing and with treating records rather than with the scan taken on the day.

Shoulders and knees

A shoulder braced against a wheel and a knee into a dashboard produce tears that do not appear on an X-ray and are routinely written off as strains. They are also the injuries most likely to need surgery months later, which is the point: a settlement priced on physical therapy does not pay for the operation that follows it.

Internal and seat belt injuries

The belt does its job and leaves a pattern doing it: rib fractures, abdominal bruising, and occasionally organ injury that presents hours later. This is the category where the emergency room visit matters most, because internal bleeding is the one thing that will not wait to be looked at.

What Florida law requires you to prove

The crash report is not the finding of fault

An officer arriving after the fact writes down what two drivers say, one of whom is often already in an ambulance. Fault in a civil claim is decided on evidence: the damage patterns, the resting positions, camera footage from the businesses along the road, signal timing, and the vehicles’ own event data recorders. Crash reports are regularly contradicted by all of it.

Two years, and it runs from the crash

For crashes on or after March 24, 2023, the deadline to sue is two years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11. Earlier crashes generally keep the older four-year deadline. A claim against a government vehicle carries its own written notice requirement on top, and that clock is far shorter.

Your share of the blame, and the line at 50 percent

Under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, somebody found more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing at all. At or under half, the recovery is reduced by that share. Expect the argument that you were going too fast, stopped short or could have avoided it, because past the halfway mark that argument is worth the entire claim rather than part of it.

The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide car accident page rather than being restated in every market.

How we prove it in Miami-Dade County

What decides a Miami-Dade crash is usually held by somebody neither driver spoke to: a fleet operator, a rental company, a building with a camera pointed at the corner.

What we go after, and when

The crash report, the officer’s diagram and the homicide or traffic investigator’s file where there was one
Camera footage from the buildings and businesses along the corridor, generally on a two week loop
Expressway and toll gantry records, which place vehicles at a time as well as a place
The event data recorder in either vehicle, which holds speed, braking and belt use before impact
Rental agreements and out-of-state policies, which decide which insurer is actually on the claim
Rideshare app data, which decides which of three coverage periods applies
Permit, inspection and complaint history for any for-hire or commercial vehicle involved
Treating records from Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial, where the serious injuries in this county go

Almost none of that keeps itself. A written preservation demand in the first days goes to every party who might hold a piece of it, not only to the driver who hit you.

A setting a car accident claim in Miami typically arises from

Who would handle your case

Being hurt in Miami is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled car 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.

How insurance companies handle these claims

A car claim is handled by an adjuster working from a file and a set of instructions, and the instructions are consistent enough that the order of events is predictable. Knowing what is coming is worth more than anything you could say on the call.

They ask you to sign a medical authorization: The form is usually a blanket release covering your whole medical history rather than the part of you that was injured. That is how a neck claim becomes a file about a shoulder you hurt in 2011. An authorization can be limited to what is actually at issue, and it should be.
An offer arrives before the treatment finishes: Early money is priced on the bills that exist today, and the surgery a treating doctor recommends three months from now is not among them. A release signed at that point closes the claim permanently. There is no reopening it because the injury turned out worse than the first offer assumed.
The file is built around your share of the blame: Expect to be told you stopped short, were going too fast, or could have avoided it. It is worth real money to them under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, and past the halfway mark it is worth the whole claim, so it is argued in almost every file whether or not the facts support it.

What a claim can include

Lost earnings and lost capacity

Wages missed while treating, and separately the gap between what you could earn before and what you can earn now. They are two different claims and the second is usually the larger.

Pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment

Not calculated from a formula, whatever anyone tells you. It is argued from what the injury actually took away, which is why the detail of an ordinary week before the crash matters.

The vehicle, and what it is worth afterward

Repair or actual cash value, the rental while you wait, and the diminished value a repaired car carries at trade-in. The last of those is frequently left on the table because nobody asks for it.

What we have recovered

Verified matters this firm has handled on car accident claims. Figures are gross recoveries, before attorney fees, costs and medical liens come out of them.

$100,000Car accident, fault reversed

A client was seriously hurt making a U-turn in Fort Lauderdale, and the responding officers assigned fault for a right-of-way violation.

Broward County policy limits settlement

Every verdict and settlement we publish, with the press coverage for the ones that were reported. No result predicts another case: every claim turns on its own facts, its own evidence and the insurance actually available.

Another setting a car accident claim in Miami arises from

Why Wolf & Pravato in Miami

A Miami-Dade crash is filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse, and that is the courthouse this office litigates in. Which circuit a case would be tried in is part of how an insurer prices it.

The firm is led by a Board Certified Civil Trial lawyer, a certification held by 861 attorneys in Florida against a membership over 109,000. Insurance companies keep their own records of which firms in a county actually try cases, and that record moves an offer further than anything a firm can say about itself.

There is no charge to ask. Our fee comes out of what we recover and nowhere else, and if the answer is that you do not have a case, that is the answer you will get.

Call 844-643-7200 Free consultation. No fee unless we win.

Questions

Miami car accident questions

I was hit by an Uber driver. Whose insurance pays?

It depends on what the app was doing at that moment, and the difference is large. During a prearranged ride Florida requires at least $1 million in coverage. Logged on and waiting for a request, the required minimums are a fraction of that. The app data settles it and we ask for it early, because it is the single fact that decides what the claim is worth.

The other driver was in a rental car from the airport. Does that complicate it?

It adds parties rather than problems. The rental agreement, any coverage the driver bought at the counter, their own policy from another state and sometimes a credit card policy can all sit behind the same crash. Sorting out which one responds first is our job and it is done with documents.

It happened on the Palmetto and traffic never stopped. Is there any evidence?

Usually more than people expect. Department of Transportation cameras cover much of SR 826, toll and gantry records place vehicles at a time, and both cars carry event data recorders holding speed and braking in the seconds before impact. All of it has a shelf life, which is the reason to ask early.

How long do I have to bring a Miami car accident claim?

Two years from the crash for most collisions on or after March 24, 2023, under Fla. Stat. § 95.11, and generally four years for earlier ones. A crash involving a transit or county vehicle carries a separate written notice requirement with its own timing, and that one is much shorter.

Where would my case be filed?

In the Eleventh Judicial Circuit at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse. Most cases resolve without a trial, though the courthouse a case would be tried in is part of how an insurer values it, and Miami-Dade is a venue carriers pay attention to.

What if the driver who hit me had no insurance?

Florida does not require drivers to carry bodily injury liability coverage, so this happens constantly. The claim usually runs through your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage instead. Many people carry UM without knowing it. Send us your declarations page and we will read it for you at no charge.

The insurance adjuster wants a recorded statement. Should I give one?

Not before you speak to a lawyer. Adjusters are trained, you are injured and probably medicated, and the recording exists forever. Since March 2023 anyone more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing in Florida, so a few sentences that sound cooperative can be worth more to them than anything else in the file.

The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.

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 1111 Brickell Avenue, 11th Floor, Miami, FL 33131.

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