Area we serve · Miami-Dade County
Car accident lawyer in Westwood Lakes
A neighborhood with no main road, and the report that never gets written
A crash in Westwood Lakes is a Miami-Dade County claim under the same Florida law as anywhere else: fourteen days to get initial care, the permanent injury threshold, two years to sue. What is local is the shape of the place. 11,373 people live on 1.66 square miles of land at 6,859 per square mile, and there is no arterial inside it — no six-lane road, no commercial strip, nothing passing through. Almost every crash here happens either on a residential street at low speed, where an officer may never write a long-form report, or at one of the few points where a local street meets a state highway. Those two situations fail in opposite ways. The statutes are on the Florida car accident page. What follows is about both.
01 What a crash here actually looks like
Dense, finished, and nothing drives through it
It is small and it is full. 1.81 square miles in all, 1.66 of it land, holding 11,373 people at 6,859 per square mile — noticeably denser than the larger communities next to it, in 3,502 housing units with 3.5% vacant and homeowner vacancy at 1.0%.
Nothing has changed for half a century. 11,522 residents in 1990, 12,005 in 2000, 11,838 in 2010, 11,373 in 2020. The same families stayed, and the share of residents 65 or older went from 17.0% in 2000 to 22.8% in 2020 while the median age reached 46.8. Hispanic or Latino residents are 88.15% of the community.
What it does not have is a road of its own. Westchester sits to the north, Olympia Heights east, Sunset south and Kendale Lakes west, and the traffic that matters runs along the edges. Inside, it is residential streets and courts, which is why two public schools sit on the same one: Royal Palm Elementary at 4200 SW 112th Court and Cypress K-8 Center at 5400 SW 112th Court, about three-quarters of a mile apart on a street that was never built to carry either of them.
So every trip out is a left turn. A neighborhood with no through road feeds all of its traffic into a handful of exits onto a six-lane state highway, and that is where the serious collisions concentrate — not inside, where the damage is lighter and the paperwork is thinner.
The quiet crash is the one that loses its own evidence.
02 What nobody tells you
Whether a report gets written is decided at the scene, in a sentence
Florida law does not require a long-form crash report for every crash. Under § 316.066(1)(a) an officer must complete the long form when the crash resulted in death, personal injury, or any indication of complaints of pain or discomfort, when it involved a fleeing driver or impairment, when a vehicle had to be towed, or when a commercial vehicle was involved. If none of that is present, § 316.066(1)(c) lets the officer write a short-form report or simply hand out a driver exchange-of-information form instead.
That is why the low-speed neighborhood crash is the one that goes wrong. Two cars meet at a residential corner, both drive away, nobody says anything hurts, and a week later one driver cannot turn their head. There is no long-form report, no diagram, no listed witnesses — and the insurer’s first question is why the record does not match the injury. Saying at the scene that something hurts is not drama; it is the statutory trigger for the report that documents the crash.
If nobody called an officer at all, there is still a filing obligation. Section 316.066(1)(e) requires a driver whose crash caused damage, and which did not require a law enforcement report, to submit a written report to the department within 10 days. That document is often the only contemporaneous record a quiet crash ever produces.
Three different road authorities surround 1.66 square miles. The interior streets are county. Bird Road along the north is State Road 976, held by the Florida Department of Transportation. The Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike runs along the west, operated by Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise. If the road itself is part of the claim, § 768.28 controls: written notice first, three years to give it and two on a wrongful death claim, with caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident — and on a state road or the Turnpike that notice has to go to the Florida Department of Financial Services as well as to the agency. Against the county, no notice to the Department is required at all.
Westwood Lakes is unincorporated, so the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office works the crash, and the Florida Highway Patrol may work Bird Road or the Turnpike. A case here is filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, and most injury claims are resolved with the insurer before any lawsuit.
03 The roads
Where the claims actually come from
Bird Road, SW 40th Street, State Road 976, along the north: a six-lane divided state highway whose western end is the Turnpike interchange right here. Everything heavy that happens to this community happens on it or entering it.
The Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, along the west: limited access, highway speeds, and a state agency — Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise — as the road authority.
The Bird Road interchange, where a neighborhood with no arterial meets a turnpike ramp and a six-lane highway in the same few hundred feet.
SW 112th Court, a residential street carrying the arrival and dismissal traffic of two public schools three-quarters of a mile apart, twice a day, on a street built for houses.
The interior courts and cul-de-sacs, where the crash is slow, the damage looks minor, and the whole file ends up depending on what was said in the first ten minutes.
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.
Say at the scene if anything hurts
Any indication of a complaint of pain or discomfort is what obliges the officer to write a long-form report under § 316.066(1)(a). Walking it off and saying you are fine is how a real injury ends up with no official record of the crash that caused it.
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. A low-speed crash in a residential street still produces injuries that show up on day three.
If no officer came, file the written report yourself
Section 316.066(1)(e) gives a driver 10 days to submit a written report to the department when the crash caused damage and no law enforcement report was required. On a quiet neighborhood crash that filing may be the only contemporaneous document that ever exists.
Photograph the cars before they move
Position, the resting place, the damage on both vehicles and the whole intersection from four directions. On an interior street there is no traffic camera and no business with footage, so your phone is the record.
Take the other driver’s information in full
Name, license, plate, insurer and policy number, and the names of anyone standing there. Without a long-form report there is no list of witnesses, and the neighbor who saw it is unfindable in two 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 claim this covers
What a neighborhood with no through road produces
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 Westwood Lakes alone. What 1.66 square miles with no arterial produces is the local part.
Car accidents
Two versions of the same thing. Inside, the low-speed corner collision with thin paperwork. At the edge, the left turn out of a residential street onto a six-lane state highway, which is where the injuries are.
Hit-and-run
A driver who leaves a residential street is frequently never identified, because there is no camera and no witness list. When no other insurer is found, the claim becomes an uninsured motorist claim on your own policy, and those policies require prompt written notice.
Pedestrian accidents
School arrival and dismissal on a residential court, and a population where 22.8% of residents are 65 or over walking the same streets at the same hours. These cases turn on how fault is divided, and more than half the fault means recovering nothing at all.
Uninsured drivers
Florida requires no bodily injury liability coverage at all, so the at-fault neighbor may have nothing behind them beyond property damage and PIP. Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is what fills that gap, and whether it stacks is on your declarations page.
06 Also for Westwood 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
3,502 homes, with homeowner vacancy at 1.0% and rental vacancy at 5.2% — so a real share of these blocks is rented. On a rented house the structure and the contents sit on two different policies, and a tenant whose belongings are ruined has no claim at all on the owner’s dwelling coverage. Either way, notice of the claim is due within one year of the date of loss.
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.
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, about eight miles east. 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 thin-paperwork crash meets now, learned from the other side of the file.
09 The law behind this
- Fla. Stat. § 316.066 When a crash report gets written
Subsection (1)(a) requires a long-form report on death, injury, any indication of complaints of pain or discomfort, a towed vehicle or a commercial vehicle. Otherwise (1)(c) allows a short form or an exchange-of-information form, and (1)(e) gives a driver 10 days to file a written report.
- 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 road authority
Written notice first — to the agency and, where the defendant is the state or Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise rather than a city or county, also to the Florida Department of Financial Services. Three years to give it, two on a wrongful death claim, and caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
- Fla. Stat. § 768.81 Fault
Damages are reduced by your share of the fault, and more than 50% of the fault bars recovery entirely.
- Fla. Stat. § 95.11 Deadlines
Two years to sue on most negligence claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023, and two years on a wrongful death claim.
10 Official resources
- FLHSMV crash portalWhere a crash report is requested, and where a driver self-report is filed
- Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office recordsFor a crash worked by the Sheriff across the unincorporated community
- Florida Highway PatrolThe agency that may work Bird Road or the Turnpike
- Florida’s Turnpike EnterpriseThe state agency that operates the Homestead Extension along the west
- Eleventh Judicial CircuitThe court a Miami-Dade case is filed in
Questions
The officer did not write a report. Do I still have a claim?
Yes. A crash report is evidence, not a requirement for a claim. But § 316.066(1)(a) obliges an officer to write a long-form report only where there was death, injury, any indication of complaints of pain or discomfort, a fleeing or impaired driver, a towed vehicle or a commercial vehicle — otherwise a short form or an exchange-of-information form is enough. Without the long form, the claim rests on photographs, medical records and whatever you collected at the scene, so collect more than you think you need.
Nobody called the police at all. What was I supposed to do?
Section 316.066(1)(e) requires a driver whose crash caused damage, where no law enforcement report was required, to submit a written report to the department within 10 days. It is filed through the FLHSMV, and on a neighborhood crash it is frequently the only document created anywhere near the date of the crash.
Why does a slow crash on a residential street turn into a fight?
Because the physical record is thin and the insurer knows it. There is no traffic camera on an interior street, no business with exterior footage, no diagram and no witness list. The argument becomes whether an injury could come from an impact that left so little damage, which is answered with medical records and with photographs nobody took. That is the whole reason the first ten minutes matter here more than they would on Bird Road.
Who writes the crash report in Westwood Lakes?
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, because the community is unincorporated. On Bird Road, a state road, or on the Turnpike, the Florida Highway Patrol may work it instead. Whichever agency wrote it, the report is requested through the FLHSMV crash portal, and the people involved and their legal representatives can obtain it immediately rather than waiting out the 60-day confidentiality period.
A pothole or a missing sign caused it. Who do I sue?
It depends which road. The interior streets are county, Bird Road is State Road 976 and belongs to the Florida Department of Transportation, and the Homestead Extension is Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise. All of them are covered by § 768.28, with written notice first and caps of $200,000 per person — but on the state road and the Turnpike that notice also has to go to the Florida Department of Financial Services, and against the county it does not.
Which hospital would I be taken to?
HCA Florida Kendall, on SW 40th Street to the east, is the Level I trauma center for the west and south of Miami-Dade; Ryder at Jackson Memorial is the county’s other Level I center. A child is normally taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center.
Is there an office in Westwood Lakes?
No. The office is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, in South Miami, about eight miles east, 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, wrongful death included. If a road authority is the defendant there is a separate clock: written notice within three years, or within two on a wrongful death claim, and on a state road or the Turnpike that notice goes to the Florida Department of Financial Services as well as to the agency.
Talk to Jose A. Dapena about a crash in Westwood Lakes
If there is no long-form report, the first conversation is about what evidence still exists and how to preserve it. The South Miami office serves all of Miami-Dade, and that conversation about an injury costs nothing.