Florida Car Accident Attorney
Get Help Understanding Florida’s Car Accident Laws

If you experience a car accident in Florida, only a Florida car accident attorney can provide you proper help and guidance as you pursue car accident claims.

Anywhere you live, you are at risk of getting into a car accident every time you drive your car, but different places have different laws when it comes to car accidents. So if you live in Florida, you will need a Florida car accident attorney, not just any car accident attorney.

The Frightening Numbers

The number of road accidents are always frightening, regardless of whether the numbers fell from the last record. Latest statistics in Florida presented by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles show that there were around 256,206 traffic accidents in Florida in the year 2007. If you do the math, each day accounts for around702 car accidents. Out of this number, 2,947 accidents were fatal.

And resulting from these fatal accidents, a total of 3,221 people died on Florida’s roads, and a whopping number of 212,149 people suffered injuries that ranged from major to minor caused by 135,601 car accidents that involved injuries. Out of the given total of car accidents that occurred in Florida in 2007, 117,658 were responsible for the damage of certain property.

The effects of car accidents in Florida vary, and so do their causes. Almost 23,000 of the accidents were traced back to alcohol, which is a far cry from the 1,252 cases that involved drugs. Alcohol use or drunk driving, therefore, is the most common cause of car accidents in Florida.

The statistics go on to identify drivers’ age group between the ages 15 and 19 to be the age group most involved in the fatal car accidents. However, the driver age group 20 to 24 had the highest rate of accidents that involved alcohol. The numbers also showed that 21-year-old drivers had the highest rate of crashes and alcohol-related crashes alike.

Pursuing Claims on Florida Car Accidents

When you find yourself involved in a car accident in Florida, it is a must to call a car accident attorney as soon as you can. To successfully make a claim, you would need knowledge in the laws of Florida regarding car accidents, and the guidelines set for determining liability and the damages to be settled. A Florida car accident attorney can give you such information, so you save a lot of time and effort.

According to Florida car accident laws, every driver who chooses to operate a car within the bounds of Florida will be held accountable for their acts and the effects of these while operating the vehicle.

If a driver fails to exercise reasonable care, Florida’s laws already count this as negligence, which can be used to build a strong case in Florida’s car accident courts. If you are preparing a lawsuit, your Florida car accident attorney can help you establish the negligence of the other party in an accident and help you bring the matter to the correct legal process.

Before your claim can be approved, you have to support the causation that links the negligence and the accident. Aside from that, in order to make a claim, you have to establish that you received considerable damages. Florida’s laws on car accidents have certain guidelines on which count as damages.

Damages, therefore, include economic injury such as, repair or replacement costs of the vehicle or any damaged parts, lost income or wages due to a physical injury, medical expenses in case of injury, funeral expenses in case of death, and so on. There are also non-economic damages which include pain, mental anxiety, suffering, and any form of inconvenience caused by the accident or by the physical injury that the accident brought on.

In Florida, you can file a car accident lawsuit and claim for damages within 4 years of the accident. After the four-year period, you can no longer file any lawsuit involving said accident. You can sue the owner of the vehicle or its operator if the two are not the same individual.

According to Florida’s laws, the vehicle is accounted for not just by the person holding the legal title of the car but by the person who has actual operational control over the vehicle.

Florida’s No-Fault Law

Aside from that, like what any Florida car accident attorney will surely inform you about, Florida has a No-Fault law, which means that your insurer will shoulder non-economic damages regardless of which side was at fault. This law was placed in order to prevent auto-injury fraud and put a limit on insurance costs in the state.

There are, however, certain exceptions to this law. Non-economic damages can be collected from a party named as the one at fault if the physical injury involved led to any permanent injury or permanent loss of a significant bodily function, permanent disfigurement or scarring, or death.

In addition, Florida’s car accident laws state that any amount you receive from a public or private insurance body as compensation will be deducted from the damages that will be awarded to you. This law is found under the Collateral Source Rule.

There are several other rules you should consider, and your Florida car accident attorney will help you understand all these so you can file a successful claim.

Dos: Get a car accident attorney that specializes in Florida car accidents if you get into an accident in Florida; file the suit within 4 years following the accident.
Don’ts: Don’t make a hasty claim without consulting a car accident attorney from Florida.

In Summary

If you get involved in a car accident in Florida, not all car accident lawyers you come across with will be able to give you a high chance of winning your case like a Florida car accident lawyer can.

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