Miami pedestrian accident lawyer

Which Florida laws apply to a Miami pedestrian accident claim

The rules are the same across Florida, so they are written out in full on one page rather than repeated here. They are explained on the statewide pedestrian accident page, with the statute text linked.

The short version, because people need it before they click: treatment must begin within fourteen days or PIP pays nothing (§ 627.736). PIP then covers 80% of medical bills up to $10,000 regardless of fault. To recover pain and suffering from the at-fault driver you must clear the threshold in § 627.737 — significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, or death.

Under § 768.81 you recover nothing if you are found greater than 50% at fault, a bar that does not apply to medical negligence claims. And the filing deadline is two years for claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023.

What follows is the part that is specific to Miami-Dade County — where these claims arise, where you will be treated, which courthouse the case goes to, and how the records are obtained.

I was on foot and I do not own a car. Who pays for my treatment?

This is the first question in a Miami-Dade pedestrian case, and the answer surprises most people.

PIP does not only follow the person who owns the policy. A pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle can frequently reach PIP benefits through a resident relative’s auto policy under Fla. Stat. § 627.736. So the question is not whether you have a car. It is whether anyone in the household has a policy.

The 14-day deadline applies either way. Treatment has to begin within 14 days of the crash for PIP to pay at all. Someone taken from the scene by ambulance has usually satisfied it without knowing; someone who walked home sore and waited has often lost it.

Why this comes before fault. Establishing fault takes months and PIP does not wait for it. Getting the treatment paid in the meantime is what keeps the medical record continuous — and a continuous record is what the rest of the claim is built on.

Where there is no household policy at all, the routes are health insurance, a letter of protection with a treating provider, or the claim itself at the end. None is as good as PIP, and all of them are better than a gap in treatment.

Why the crossing matters more than where you were standing

A driver’s account almost always begins with where the pedestrian was. The more useful question is what the road offered.

Whether a marked crossing existed within a reasonable distance. How long the signal actually gave to cross six lanes. Whether a sidewalk existed on that stretch or whether the design forced people into the roadway. Whether the lighting worked that night. Whether the driver was turning across a crossing with a walk signal lit.

Those are conditions of the road, and conditions can be documented. Signal timing, lane configuration, the distance to the nearest marked crossing and the state of the lighting are all recoverable facts — but a repaved road or a retimed signal erases them, and a serious incident is frequently followed by exactly that kind of change.

Which is why photographs taken early are worth more here than in almost any other claim. Not of the injuries. Of the crossing, the signal, the sight lines and the distance to the next light, in the same light conditions as the crash where possible.

None of it makes fault disappear where a person crossed away from a crossing. Under § 768.81 a share of fault reduces the recovery proportionally and bars it entirely above 50 percent — so the difference between a 20 percent share and a 55 percent share is the difference between a claim and nothing.

The driver did not stop. What claim is there?

Usually uninsured motorist coverage, and a pedestrian who owns no car is not automatically without it.

UM may come from your own auto policy, or from a resident relative’s. A hit-and-run is one of the core situations the coverage exists for, and it is reached without ever identifying the driver.

The report matters more here than anywhere else. A UM carrier will test whether the incident was reported promptly and described consistently from the start, so the first account given is the one the claim is measured against.

And the footage is on a clock. On a Miami-Dade arterial there is usually more video than people expect — buses, storefronts, doorbell cameras, parking garages, and in some municipalities traffic cameras. All of it overwrites, some within days. A written preservation request naming the location, the date and the time window is the only thing that reliably holds any of it.

One trap even when a driver is identified: accepting the at-fault driver’s policy limits and signing a release without certified-mail notice to the UM carrier can destroy the UM claim under § 627.727(6)(a).

The Miami-Dade roads where people on foot are struck

The pattern across the county is the same one: a multi-lane arterial built to move vehicles, with signalized crossings placed far apart, that people have to cross on foot anyway.

US-1 and Biscayne Boulevard are the clearest cases — long corridors where the nearest marked crossing can be a quarter mile in either direction, and where a person weighing a long detour against a gap in traffic makes the choice that the design made for them.

Kendall Drive and Bird Road add six lanes of commercial frontage and a turning conflict at every block, which produces a different collision: a driver turning across a crossing with the walk signal lit.

Calle Ocho and Flagler are dense and slower, so the impacts are at lower speed and the disputes are about right of way rather than visibility.

NW 7th and NW 27th Avenues run straight and fast through dense neighborhoods, with the night-time toll that comes from speed plus poor lighting.

And Okeechobee Road is the hardest of all: a freight corridor with heavy trucks and almost no crossing provision, which people cross regardless because the places they are walking between are on either side of it.

Where the Miami office is, and how to get there

DAPENALAW is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, South Miami, FL 33143, open Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 17:00. The direct number is (305) 662-4323.

The office is on Sunset Drive in South Miami — signed by the county as SW 72nd Street and by the state as FL-986 — a few blocks west of US-1 and close to the South Miami Metrorail station, with parking on site. From the Palmetto, exit at Sunset and head east; from US-1, turn west. A first conversation can happen by phone or video, and home and hospital visits are available when someone cannot travel. For anyone in the south of the county, the Homestead office on Krome Avenue is usually the shorter drive.

You do not have to come in. The first conversation can be by phone or video, documents are handled electronically, and where an injury makes travel difficult the meeting happens where you are. The Sunset Drive office serves Miami-Dade generally, and most often South Miami, Coral Gables, Westchester, Kendall, Coral Terrace, Olympia Heights, West Miami, Sweetwater, Glenvar Heights, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay, Coconut Grove, Little Havana, Hialeah and Doral. The Homestead office on Krome Avenue is usually the shorter drive for Florida City, the Redland, Leisure City and Naranja.

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