Area we serve · Miami-Dade County
Car accident lawyer in Kendale Lakes
West of the Turnpike extension, and a different place from Kendall
A crash in Kendale Lakes is a Miami-Dade County claim under the same Florida law as anywhere else: fourteen days to get initial care, the injury threshold, two years to sue. What is local starts with the name. Kendale Lakes is not Kendall. They are separate communities with the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike running between them, and that road is a third jurisdiction of its own — the Florida Highway Patrol works crashes on it and Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise holds it. Which side of that line you were on decides which agency wrote the report and, in a claim about the road, who the defendant is. The statutes are on the Florida car accident page. What follows is about that line and the streets on this side of it.
01 What a crash here actually looks like
A lake community with very few ways out of it
About six percent of Kendale Lakes is water. Of 8.61 square miles, half a square mile is lake, and the place was laid out around them — curving streets, cul-de-sacs, almost no through routes. The lakes are the reason the street pattern works the way it does.
Everything therefore funnels to a handful of outlets. Kendall Drive, SW 88th Street, runs along the south; SW 137th Avenue, also called Lindgren Road, carries the north-south movement; Bird Road reaches the northern end. The collisions concentrate where an interior street finally meets one of those three.
The Turnpike extension forms the eastern edge, with access at Exit 20 to Kendall Drive and Exit 23 to Bird Road. Two interchanges serve 55,646 people, which is why the approaches to them carry far more turning traffic than the roads around them.
It has aged in place. Built out as a bedroom community through the 1970s and into the late 1980s, Kendale Lakes now has a median age of 45.7 and 20.6% of residents aged 65 or older. Its population has been slowly falling — 56,901 in 2000, 55,646 in 2020 — while the houses and the people in them got older together.
Kendale Lakes is not Kendall. The Turnpike extension runs between them.
02 What nobody tells you
Which side of the Turnpike changes the whole file
Kendale Lakes is unincorporated, so the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office works the crash. On the Turnpike extension itself it is normally the Florida Highway Patrol, and on a ramp it depends on where the vehicles came to rest. That is not a technicality — it decides which agency holds the report you need.
The name confusion has practical consequences. Records, bills and insurer correspondence routinely say "Kendall" for an address in Kendale Lakes, because the ZIP codes and the main road both carry that name. An adjuster working from the wrong community is an adjuster making the wrong assumptions about the road, the speed and the agency. Giving cross streets rather than a neighborhood name settles it.
If the claim is about the road, the defendant depends on the road. Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise holds the Turnpike extension, the state holds SW 137th Avenue as State Road 825, and Miami-Dade County holds the local streets. Each runs under § 768.28, which begins with written notice and caps damages at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
HCA Florida Kendall is the Level I trauma center for this side of the county, with Ryder at Jackson Memorial the other one. A child is normally taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center.
A Kendale Lakes case is filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Most injury claims are resolved with the insurer before any lawsuit is filed.
03 The roads
Where the claims actually come from
Kendall Drive, SW 88th Street, along the southern side: a state road, six lanes in places, with a shopping center at nearly every major intersection and turning traffic at all of them.
SW 137th Avenue, Lindgren Road, State Road 825, the north-south spine, whose northern terminus is at Kendall Drive and which meets the Hammocks and The Crossings at the same corner.
The Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, the eastern edge, where speeds are highway speeds and the Highway Patrol writes the report.
Exits 20 and 23, the only two interchanges, where expressway traffic decelerates into surface traffic and surface traffic queues to get on.
The interior streets — curving, lake-bounded, with limited sight distance and no through route, which is where the low-speed collisions and the backing incidents happen.
04 What to do now
The things that can only be done in the first two weeks
What follows is a checklist rather than advice about your situation, and none of it commits you to anything.
Get seen within fourteen days
Personal Injury Protection pays nothing at all if the first treatment falls outside fourteen days — not a reduced amount, nothing. HCA Florida Kendall is the trauma center for this side of the county, and urgent care clinics line Kendall Drive.
Say Kendale Lakes, and give the cross streets
Half the records in these files say Kendall because the ZIP code and the main road both do. Naming the two streets that cross at the scene removes an ambiguity that otherwise follows the claim for months.
Fix which side of the Turnpike it was on
On the extension it is the Highway Patrol and a state toll authority. On the street below or the ramp between, it is the Sheriff and the county. That decides the report, the records and, in a road claim, the defendant.
Note the agency and the report number
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office across unincorporated Kendale Lakes, the Florida Highway Patrol on the Turnpike extension. The report is requested the same way whichever one wrote it.
Pull your own declarations page
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and whether it stacks. Florida does not require any driver to carry bodily injury liability, so your own policy is often the ceiling.
Do not give the other insurer a recorded statement
You are not required to. The answer given in the first week gets quoted back for the next two years.
05 The kinds of claim this covers
An older community on three busy roads
Miami-Dade County recorded 60,000 traffic crashes in 2024, injuring 29,359 people and killing 272, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the county’s Vision Zero program counts about 99 pedestrian deaths a year. No published count exists for Kendale Lakes alone. What a community that has aged in place beside a turnpike produces is the local part.
Car accidents
The bulk of it, and here it is the outlet rather than the open road: a curving interior street finally meeting Kendall Drive or SW 137th Avenue, with a turn across traffic that is moving at state-road speed.
Pedestrian accidents
Crossing Kendall Drive on foot means crossing a state road with signals far apart, in a community where one resident in five is over 65. These cases turn on how fault is divided, and more than half the fault means recovering nothing at all.
Uninsured drivers
A turnpike along the edge brings in drivers from counties away, and whatever they carry is what the claim has to work with. Florida requires no bodily injury liability coverage at all, so the underinsured case is the ordinary one and your own policy is what fills the gap.
Nursing home neglect
A community where a fifth of residents are 65 or older is a community whose families eventually deal with a facility. Falls, pressure injuries, dehydration and medication errors are documented in records the facility holds, and those records are the case. This is a different claim from a crash, with different deadlines and a different pre-suit process.
06 Also for Kendale Lakes
The other matters this office takes from here
Injury work is most of this practice. The rest run from the South Miami office, each with its own page and its own fee terms.
Property insurance claims
Houses built through the 1970s and 1980s on a lake system reach the age where roofs, supply lines and panels fail, and where drainage and water intrusion become their own argument. The insurer calls it wear; the claim turns on documenting the event. Notice is due within one year of the date of loss.
Family law
Divorce, time-sharing, support, property and protective orders in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
Immigration
Removal defense, bond, asylum, family petitions and citizenship. Which court holds a case is decided by the file rather than by the address on it.
Criminal defense
Bond and release conditions, DUI, drug charges, theft and domestic violence, after an arrest by the Sheriff rather than by a city department.
07 How this works
The consultation, the documents, and what it costs
The first conversation is with Jose A. Dapena, not with an intake department. On an injury matter it is free and commits you to nothing, and it can happen by phone.
The Miami office is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, in South Miami, east of here along the same corridor. There is parking on site.
Fees differ by practice and are stated before anything is signed. Injury work is contingent, normally payable only if there is a recovery, with costs governed by the written agreement. Family and immigration are hourly, with payment plans and separate government filing fees. Criminal is a flat fee set by the charges and the scope, with no payment plans. The free consultation is an injury term and does not travel to the others.
08 Who you deal with
Jose A. Dapena
Admitted to The Florida Bar in 1998, number 152358, and admitted to the United States District Courts for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Florida.
Before representing injured people he was in-house counsel for a Personal Injury Protection carrier, reviewing claims on the insurer’s behalf: the same analysis a claim meets now, learned from the other side of the file.
09 The law behind this
- Fla. Stat. § 627.736 Personal Injury Protection
80% of medical expenses and 60% of lost wages up to $10,000, and the fourteen-day deadline for initial care.
- Fla. Stat. § 768.28 Claims against a government
Written notice first, and three years to give it — to the agency and, where the defendant is the state rather than a city or county, also to the Florida Department of Financial Services. Six months for the agency to respond, and caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
- Fla. Stat. § 768.81 Comparative fault
More than 50% at fault and the claim recovers nothing, which is the whole argument in a pedestrian case.
- Fla. Stat. § 95.11 Deadlines
Two years to sue on most negligence claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023.
10 Official resources
- FLHSMV crash portalWhere a crash report is requested, whichever agency wrote it
- Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office recordsFor a crash worked by the Sheriff across unincorporated Kendale Lakes
- Florida’s Turnpike EnterpriseThe agency that operates the Homestead Extension along the eastern edge
- Eleventh Judicial CircuitThe court a Miami-Dade case is filed in
Questions
Is Kendale Lakes the same as Kendall?
No. They are separate communities, and the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike runs between them. The confusion is understandable — the ZIP codes and Kendall Drive both carry the name — but it matters, because records and insurers that place a Kendale Lakes crash in Kendall start from the wrong road, the wrong speed and sometimes the wrong agency.
Who writes the crash report in Kendale Lakes?
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, because Kendale Lakes is unincorporated. On the Turnpike extension along the eastern edge it is normally the Florida Highway Patrol. Whichever agency wrote it, the report is requested through the FLHSMV crash portal.
My crash was on the Turnpike extension. Does that change anything?
Yes. The Highway Patrol normally writes the report rather than the Sheriff, the speeds make the injuries worse, and if the condition of the road is part of the claim the defendant is Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise rather than the county. A claim against a state agency begins with written notice under § 768.28, which goes to the agency and to the Florida Department of Financial Services both — a step a claim against a city or county does not require.
Which hospital would I be taken to?
HCA Florida Kendall is the Level I trauma center for the west and south of Miami-Dade; the county’s other Level I center is Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial. A child is normally taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center.
My parent was hurt in a facility, not in a crash.
That is a different claim with a different process. Falls, pressure injuries, dehydration and medication errors are recorded in documents the facility holds, and getting those records is the first step rather than the last. It is worth raising early, because the pre-suit requirements and the deadlines are not the same as a crash claim’s.
Is there an office in Kendale Lakes?
No. The office is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, in South Miami, east of here, and it serves all of Miami-Dade.
How long do I have?
Fourteen days to get initial care for Personal Injury Protection to pay anything, and two years to sue on most negligence claims. If a government body or road authority is the defendant, four years to sue but written notice within three.
Talk to Jose A. Dapena about a crash in Kendale Lakes
The South Miami office on Sunset Drive serves all of Miami-Dade. The first conversation about an injury costs nothing.