Area we serve · Hillsborough County
Car accident lawyer in Riverview
Nine times more people than in 2000, on much the same road network
A crash in Riverview is a Hillsborough County claim, and the law that decides it is the same law as anywhere in Florida: the fourteen-day deadline for initial care, the injury threshold, two years to sue. What is specific here is the arithmetic. Riverview had 12,035 residents at the 2000 Census and 107,396 at the 2020 Census — nearly nine times as many people in twenty years — on a road network that grew nothing like as fast. Most of what happens here happens where a subdivision of several thousand homes empties onto a road that was built as a two-lane county road. The statutes are on the Florida car accident page. What follows is about what the growth did to the roads.
01 What a Riverview crash actually looks like
Subdivision entrances on roads that used to carry farm traffic
US-301 and Interstate 75 run north to south on either side, and they carry the commuting traffic into Tampa and the freight heading down the state. Between them sits everything that has been built in the last twenty years.
Big Bend Road, Gibsonton Drive, Boyette Road and Balm Riverview Road are the east-west connectors, and they are where the claims come from. They were laid out for a community of a few thousand, and they now carry the traffic of more than a hundred thousand, with subdivision entrances every few hundred yards and far fewer turn lanes and signals than the volume would justify.
The turning movement is the pattern here. A driver waiting to turn left across two lanes of oncoming traffic, from a development entrance with no protected phase, is the single most common set of facts — and the one where the dispute afterward is about gaps, speed and what each driver could see.
There is no Level I trauma center south of Tampa, so anyone seriously hurt here is taken north to Tampa General, which is the only one in Hillsborough County. The local emergency departments handle everything short of that, which means one crash often generates two sets of records.
The rooftops arrived in twenty years. The turn lanes did not.
02 The part nobody tells you about Riverview
A community that grew ninefold and never became a city
The Census counted 12,035 people in Riverview in 2000, 71,050 in 2010 and 107,396 in 2020. That is roughly nine times the population in twenty years, and half of that growth arrived in a single decade. Very little else about the place changed at the same speed.
It is still unincorporated Hillsborough County. There is no city government and no local police department: the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office polices it and writes the reports, and the Florida Highway Patrol works Interstate 75 and the state roads. The county has only three incorporated cities, and Riverview — larger than two of them put together — is not one of them.
That matters when the road itself is part of the claim. With no city, the responsible government is the county or the state, depending on the road, and either one is a § 768.28 defendant: written notice within three years, six months for the agency to respond before suit, recovery capped at $200,000 for one person and $300,000 for the incident, and four years to file rather than two.
It also matters for what a road is supposed to do. Where a two-lane county road is carrying a volume that arrived after it was designed, questions about turn lanes, signal timing and sight distance are questions for whoever maintains it — and establishing which agency that is comes before anything else.
A Riverview case is filed in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, 800 East Twiggs Street in downtown Tampa. Most injury claims never get there, because they resolve with the insurer before a suit is filed.
03 The roads
Where the claims actually come from
US-301, the north-south surface route, carrying commuter and commercial traffic at high volumes through signalized intersections.
Interstate 75, along the west, where the speeds are highest and the Florida Highway Patrol works the crashes.
Big Bend Road and Gibsonton Drive, the east-west connectors to the interstate, with development entrances along their length.
Boyette Road and Balm Riverview Road, two-lane county roads now serving tens of thousands of homes.
The subdivision entrances themselves, where an unprotected left turn across oncoming traffic is the most common set of facts in the whole area.
04 What to do now
The things that can only be done in the first two weeks
A checklist, not advice about your own case. The turn-lane item is the one people skip and regret.
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. It is the deadline that expires before most people have decided what to do.
Ask the Sheriff, not a city
Riverview is unincorporated, so the report comes from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, or from the Florida Highway Patrol on Interstate 75 and the state roads. There is no Riverview police department.
Photograph the sight line from the turn
In an unprotected left turn the whole argument is what the turning driver could see and how fast the oncoming vehicle was closing. A photograph from the driver’s seat, at the stop position, is the evidence nobody produces later.
Note whether there was a turn lane or a signal
Whether the entrance had a protected phase, a dedicated lane or nothing at all is a fact about the road, and roads here get rebuilt as the development continues. What was there on the day stops being verifiable surprisingly quickly.
Get names at the scene
Much of the traffic on these roads is commuting through to Tampa or down the interstate. A witness who was passing through is a witness nobody finds a month later.
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 crash this covers
The same roads, five different claims
Hillsborough County recorded 26,269 traffic crashes in 2024, with 17,359 people injured and 180 killed, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That is a county figure: there is no published count for Riverview alone, and anyone quoting one is estimating. Which of them an unprotected left turn produces is the local part, and here it produces most of them.
Car accidents
The bulk of it, and here the pattern is the unprotected left turn out of a development entrance, plus the rear-end collisions in the queues those turns create.
The fourteen-day deadline applies to every one of them, whoever was at fault.
Truck accidents
Interstate 75 and US-301 both carry freight through here, and construction traffic serving the subdivisions puts loaded vehicles on roads that were not built for them.
It is also a different case: a company behind the driver, a USDOT number, and records kept for a defined period and then lawfully destroyed.
Pedestrian accidents
Sidewalks here end where the newest development ends, and the connectors have long stretches with no crossing at all between one subdivision and the next.
These turn on how fault is divided, and more than half the fault means recovering nothing at all.
Motorcycle accidents
An unprotected left turn across traffic is the classic motorcycle collision, and it is also the most common movement on these roads.
Serious trauma goes north to Tampa General, the county’s only Level I trauma center, and motorcyclists are not required to carry Personal Injury Protection.
Uninsured drivers
Florida requires no driver to carry bodily injury liability coverage at all, so the underinsured case — limits smaller than the harm done — is the common one rather than the exception.
The claim moves to your own policy, which makes the declarations page the most important document in the file.
06 Also for Riverview
The other matters this office takes from here
Injury work is most of this practice. The rest run from the Tampa office, each with its own page and its own fee terms.
Immigration
Removal defense, bond, asylum, family petitions and citizenship. A Tampa-area case is often controlled by the Orlando court, and a detained case by the court for whichever facility holds the person.
Family law
Divorce, time-sharing, support, property and protective orders in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit — a practice that has grown here at roughly the same rate as the population.
Criminal defense
Bond and release conditions, DUI, drug charges, theft and domestic violence, after an arrest by the Sheriff’s Office, since there is no city police department here.
Property insurance claims
A denied or underpaid claim on a Riverview home. Much of this housing is new enough that a water or roof loss turns into an argument about construction rather than about weather.
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 Tampa office is at 4231 N Habana Avenue, west of downtown. It is the office that serves all of Hillsborough County, and most of a first conversation does not require anyone to drive anywhere.
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 — the Middle District is the federal court that covers Hillsborough.
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. § 627.737 The injury threshold
What an injury has to reach before pain and suffering can be claimed from the driver at fault.
- Fla. Stat. § 768.28 Claims against the county or the state
Written notice first, and three years to give it — to the agency, and also to the Florida Department of Financial Services where the defendant is the state rather than the county. Six months for the agency to respond, and caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
- Fla. Stat. § 95.11 Deadlines
Two years to sue on most negligence claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023 — four years where the defendant is a government.
10 Official resources
- FLHSMV crash portalWhere a crash report is requested, whichever agency wrote it
- Hillsborough County Sheriff’s OfficeThe agency that polices unincorporated Hillsborough, Riverview included
- Thirteenth Judicial CircuitThe court a Hillsborough case is filed in
- Hillsborough Clerk of CourtFiling, case search and the forms a self-represented party needs
Questions
Is there a Riverview police department?
No. Riverview is unincorporated Hillsborough County, so the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office polices it and writes the report. On Interstate 75 and the state roads it may be the Florida Highway Patrol.
Is there an office in Riverview?
No. The office is at 4231 N Habana Avenue in Tampa, west of downtown. It is the office that serves all of Hillsborough County, and a first conversation can happen by phone.
I was turning out of my subdivision and got hit.
That is the most common set of facts in the area, and the argument is almost always about sight lines and closing speed. What the turning driver could see from the stop position, and whether the entrance had a protected phase or a turn lane at all, are the two things worth recording immediately.
The road seems badly designed for the traffic. Does that matter?
It can. With no city here, the responsible government is the county or the state depending on the road, and such a claim runs under Fla. Stat. § 768.28: written notice within three years, six months for the agency to respond before suit, and caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. Establishing which agency maintains the road comes first.
Where would I be taken if it was serious?
North to Tampa General, which is the only Level I trauma center in Hillsborough County. The local emergency departments handle everything short of that, which is why one crash often produces records in two places.
Where would my case be heard?
In the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, 800 East Twiggs Street in downtown Tampa. Most injury claims are resolved without a lawsuit.
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 is the defendant, four years to sue but written notice within three.
Talk to Jose A. Dapena about a Riverview crash
The Tampa office on North Habana Avenue serves all of Hillsborough County, and the first conversation about an injury costs nothing. If the matter is not an injury, the fee terms are set out in writing before anything begins.