Area we serve · Miami-Dade County
Car accident lawyer in Westchester
The county’s western trauma center is on this community’s own street
A crash in Westchester 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 is Bird Road. HCA Florida Kendall, at 11750 SW 40th Street, is one of only two Level I trauma centers in Miami-Dade — the one that takes the west and south of the county — and it stands on the street that forms Westchester’s southern edge. Very few places in this county are closer to Level I care, and in the hours when a serious injury is either documented or not, that distance is the whole difference. The statutes are on the Florida car accident page. What follows is about this ground.
01 What a crash here actually looks like
A grid of avenues between two state roads
Westchester sits between SW 8th Street on the north and Bird Road on the south, about ten miles west of downtown Miami, with Sweetwater and Fontainebleau above it, Tamiami to the west and Olympia Heights and Westwood Lakes below.
The Palmetto Expressway runs down its eastern side. The community’s own entrance sign stands on Bird Road just west of it, which is a fair description of the place: everything here is defined by its relationship to a road someone else is passing through on.
The numbered avenues do the work. SW 87th, 97th, 107th and 117th carry north-south traffic between the two state roads, and the collisions concentrate where one of them meets 8th Street or Bird Road — a six-lane state road crossing a residential avenue, with turning movements at every signal.
It is an older community than its neighbors. The median age is 45.3 and 23.2% of residents are 65 or older, which changes both who is driving and who is walking across Bird Road to reach a bus stop.
Everything here is defined by a road someone else is passing through on.
02 What nobody tells you
The census redrew what Westchester means
For the 2020 census the Census Bureau deleted the University Park CDP and merged it into Westchester, roughly doubling both the geography and the count: 29,862 people in 2010 became 56,384 in 2020 without anybody moving. The western half of what is now Westchester is the place that used to be called University Park, and part of the Florida International University campus falls inside the line.
That changes nothing about your rights and quite a lot about your paperwork. Records, reports and old documents may describe the same address by either name, and an address a claims adjuster cannot place is an address that slows a file down. If something happened on the FIU campus, that is a separate question again, because a state university is a different kind of defendant.
Westchester is unincorporated, so the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office works the crash. On the Palmetto Expressway it is normally the Florida Highway Patrol. Cross into Sweetwater on the north and a city police department takes over, which is unusual enough in this part of the county to catch people out.
HCA Florida Kendall, on Bird Road, is the Level I trauma center for this side of Miami-Dade. The county’s other Level I center is Ryder at Jackson Memorial. A child is normally taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center, and a serious burn goes to a verified burn center — the Burn and Reconstructive Center at HCA Florida Kendall, or the Miami Burn Center inside Ryder.
A Westchester 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
Bird Road, SW 40th Street, the southern edge: a state road, six lanes at points, carrying hospital traffic, commercial driveways and the people crossing it on foot to reach them.
SW 8th Street, the Tamiami Trail, the northern edge: US-41, the oldest road through this part of the county and still the busiest, running from the city out past Sweetwater toward the Everglades.
Coral Way, through the middle, past the regional library at 9445 Coral Way and the retail that sits along it.
The Palmetto Expressway, the eastern side, where the speeds are highway speeds, the Florida Highway Patrol normally writes the report, and the merge onto and off of it is where the serious ones happen.
The numbered avenues — 87th, 97th, 107th, 117th — which carry the whole community between those two state roads and produce the left-turn and red-light collisions at every signal along the way.
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. None of it requires hiring anyone.
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. The trauma center on Bird Road is minutes away, and so are several urgent care clinics along it.
Note which agency responded
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office across unincorporated Westchester, the Florida Highway Patrol on the Palmetto, a city department if the crash was north of SW 8th Street in Sweetwater. Write down the agency and the report number.
Record the address both ways
If the location is in the western half, it may appear in older records as University Park. Noting the cross streets rather than only the neighborhood name saves an argument later about whether two documents describe the same place.
Photograph the crossing, not just the cars
On Bird Road and 8th Street the question is usually what a driver could see and how long a pedestrian had to cross. Signal timing, a blocked sight line, a missing crosswalk — all of it is evidence, and all of it can be changed by the county within weeks.
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
Two state roads, four different claims
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 own Vision Zero program counts about 99 pedestrian deaths a year. No published count exists for Westchester alone. What a residential grid between two state roads produces is the local part.
Car accidents
The bulk of it, and here it is the crossing rather than the open road: an avenue meeting a six-lane state road, with a left turn across oncoming traffic at nearly every signal.
Pedestrian accidents
In a community where nearly a quarter of residents are 65 or older, crossing Bird Road on foot is a daily act with a long exposure. These cases turn on how fault is divided, and more than half the fault means recovering nothing at all.
Hit-and-run
On a state road carrying through traffic, the driver who leaves is frequently never identified. When there is no other insurer, the claim becomes an uninsured motorist claim on your own policy, and those policies require prompt written notice.
Uninsured drivers
Florida requires no driver to carry bodily injury liability coverage at all, so the underinsured case is the common one. The claim moves to your own policy, which makes the declarations page the most important document in the file.
06 Also for Westchester
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
A community of single-family houses that have been through more than one hurricane season produces the roof and water claim where the insurer argues the damage accumulated rather than happened. Notice of the claim is due within one year of the date of loss.
Immigration
Removal defense, bond, asylum, family petitions and citizenship. The Miami immigration court is downtown, and which court holds a case is decided by the file rather than by the address on it.
Family law
Divorce, time-sharing, support, property and protective orders in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
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, a short drive east and south of here. 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. § 627.737 The injury threshold
What an injury has to amount to before pain and suffering can be claimed from the at-fault driver.
- 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 Westchester
- Eleventh Judicial CircuitThe court a Miami-Dade case is filed in
- Miami-Dade Clerk of the CourtsFiling, case search and the forms a self-represented party needs
Questions
Who writes the crash report in Westchester?
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, because Westchester is unincorporated. On the Palmetto Expressway the Florida Highway Patrol normally works it, and north of SW 8th Street the City of Sweetwater has its own police department. Whichever agency wrote it, the report is requested through the FLHSMV crash portal.
Which hospital would I be taken to?
HCA Florida Kendall at 11750 SW 40th Street — on Bird Road, the southern edge of the community. It is one of only two Level I trauma centers in Miami-Dade and the one that serves the west and south of the county; the other is Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial. A child is usually taken to Nicklaus Children’s instead.
My address used to be called University Park. Which is it now?
Westchester, as far as the census is concerned. The Census Bureau deleted the University Park CDP and merged it into Westchester for the 2020 count, which is why the population doubled from 29,862 to 56,384 without anyone moving. Nothing about your rights changes. It is worth recording cross streets rather than only the neighborhood name, because records from different years may use either.
It happened on the FIU campus. Is that different?
Yes, materially. Florida International University is a state institution, so a claim arising on the campus runs against a government defendant under § 768.28. That means written notice first — to the university and also to the Florida Department of Financial Services, because a state university board of trustees is a state agency rather than a city or county — and statutory caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. It is worth saying on the first call rather than discovering it later.
Is there an office in Westchester?
No. The office is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, in South Miami, a short drive east and south, and it serves all of Miami-Dade.
Where would my case be heard?
In the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, which covers all of Miami-Dade County. 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 body is the defendant, four years to sue but written notice within three.
Talk to Jose A. Dapena about a crash in Westchester
The South Miami office on Sunset Drive is a short drive from here and serves all of Miami-Dade. The first conversation about an injury costs nothing.