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A tractor-trailer traveling at speed on a Florida highway

Florida truck accident lawyer

Two trucks. Same weight. Very different insurance.

The most consequential fact in a Florida truck case is usually not how the crash happened. It is whether the carrier was operating across state lines or only inside Florida — because that one difference changes the minimum liability coverage behind the truck, and it changes how many hours the driver could lawfully have been at the wheel. What it does not change is the paperwork. Florida applies the same federal safety rules to carriers that never leave the state, so the logs, the inspection records and the drug tests exist either way. They are kept for six months, and then they may lawfully be destroyed.

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Quick answers about Florida truck accident claims

Why does interstate or intrastate matter so much?
It sets the minimum insurance. A for-hire carrier crossing state lines must carry at least $750,000 for non-hazardous freight. The same truck running only inside Florida may carry $300,000.
How long do the driver’s logs exist?
Six months. Federal rule requires carriers to keep records of duty status and ELD data for that long, and no longer.
Is a truck claim just a bigger car claim?
No. Florida PIP and the injury threshold still apply to you, but the defendant is a regulated business with federal record-keeping duties and usually several layers of insurance.
Who else can be responsible besides the driver?
The motor carrier, and sometimes a freight broker, the shipper who loaded the trailer, or a maintenance contractor. Each may carry separate coverage.
What should be done first?
A written preservation demand to the carrier, before the six-month clock runs on the logs and before the vehicle is repaired or released.
Can the case be handled in Spanish?
Yes. The attorney and the staff speak Spanish, so the matter runs in Spanish from the first call.
Interstate minimum
$750,000For-hire, non-hazardous freight. 49 CFR 387.9
Florida intrastate minimum
$300,000For a vehicle of 44,000 lbs or more. Fla. Stat. § 627.7415
Driver log retention
6 monthsRecords of duty status and ELD data. 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1)
Deadline to sue
2 yearsFla. Stat. § 95.11, for crashes on or after 24 March 2023

01 The question that sets the ceiling

Interstate or intrastate: the difference that decides what can be recovered

Two identical trucks can carry very different insurance, and it depends on whether the carrier operates across state lines.

A for-hire carrier moving non-hazardous freight in interstate commerce must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage under 49 CFR 387.9. Carriers hauling certain hazardous materials must carry $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 depending on the category.

A carrier operating only inside Florida answers to Fla. Stat. § 627.7415, which scales with weight: $50,000 per occurrence for a vehicle of 26,000 to under 35,000 pounds, $100,000 from 35,000 to under 44,000, and $300,000 at 44,000 pounds and above. A vehicle subject to the federal rules must meet the federal figure instead.

So the same 44,000-pound truck may sit behind $300,000 or $750,000 depending on nothing more than the carrier’s operating authority. In a case with a surgery and lost income, that is often the difference between a claim that is fully covered and one that is not.

These are minimums, not actual limits. Many carriers buy well above them, and excess or umbrella layers are common. But the minimum is the floor the case starts from, and establishing which floor applies is an early question with a concrete answer: the carrier’s USDOT number and its FMCSA authority record.

02 The rulebook applies either way

Florida applies the federal safety rules to intrastate carriers too

A carrier that never leaves Florida is not an unregulated one, and this is the point most people get backwards.

Fla. Stat. § 316.302(1)(b) adopts 49 C.F.R. parts 382–386 and 390–397 for intrastate commercial vehicles — the same parts that bind an interstate carrier. Driver qualification files, vehicle inspection and maintenance records, drug and alcohol testing, and records of duty status are all required on both sides of that line.

There is one wrinkle worth knowing. The intrastate version is frozen in time: the statute adopts those federal rules as they existed on 31 December 2023. The interstate rules keep moving. The intrastate ones do not, until the Legislature moves the date.

So the practical consequence runs opposite to the assumption. The insurance floor is lower for an intrastate carrier. The paper trail is not. A preservation demand asks for the same documents regardless of which authority the carrier holds, and a carrier that cannot produce them has the same problem either way.

03 Two different ceilings

How many hours the driver could lawfully have been at the wheel

A fatigue case turns on a number, and the number is not the same for every carrier.

Under 49 C.F.R. § 395.3(a), an interstate driver may not drive without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive at all after 14 consecutive hours on duty, and may drive no more than 11 hours inside that window. Driving is barred after 8 cumulative hours without a 30-minute interruption.

Florida sets its own limits for intrastate drivers at § 316.302(2)(b): 12 hours driving after 10 consecutive hours off, no driving after the sixteenth hour on duty, and a weekly cap of 70 hours in 7 days or 80 in 8, reset by 34 consecutive hours off.

Read those side by side and the gap is concrete. An intrastate driver may lawfully drive one hour longer, inside a window two hours longer, and work more hours across the week than the interstate driver in the next lane.

That matters twice over. It decides whether the hours in the log are a violation at all — and where they are not, it removes a defence the carrier would otherwise lean on, because "he was within his hours" means something different depending on which ceiling applied.

04 The gap below 26,001 pounds

Smaller commercial vehicles fall outside most of it

Not every commercial vehicle carries the full federal burden, and the cut-off is a weight.

Under § 316.302(2)(f), an intrastate vehicle whose gross vehicle weight, gross vehicle weight rating and combination weight rating are all below 26,001 pounds — and which is not placarded for hazardous materials — sits outside the main body of adopted rules.

It is not exempt from everything. Part 382 on drugs and alcohol still applies, as do part 392 on driving, part 393 on equipment, and the inspection duties at 396.3(a)(1) and 396.9.

This is the category that surprises people. Box trucks, large vans, landscaping rigs, delivery vehicles. Heavy enough to do catastrophic harm, commercial in every ordinary sense, and often behind nothing more than a standard commercial auto policy with no federal filing behind it. Establishing which side of 26,001 pounds a vehicle falls on is an early question with a documentary answer.

05 A contract that cannot shift the blame

Why the carrier’s contract with a broker or shipper may not protect them

Freight moves through contracts, and those contracts routinely contain indemnity clauses in which one business agrees to absorb another’s liability. In Florida there is a limit on how far that can go.

§ 316.302(13) makes void any provision in a motor carrier transportation contract that purports to indemnify a party against liability for its own negligence or intentional acts, for contracts entered into or renewed on or after 1 July 2010.

It matters whenever more than one business touched the load — a broker who arranged it, a shipper whose people loaded the trailer, a contractor who last serviced the brakes. The paperwork between those businesses cannot be used to funnel the whole loss onto whichever of them carries the least insurance.

Which is why the contracts are worth asking for, and why they belong in the same preservation demand as the logs.

06 The six-month clock

The federal records that prove a truck case, and how long they last

Under 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1) a motor carrier must retain records of duty status and supporting documents for six months. Electronic logging device data carries the same six-month requirement, including the back-up copy.

That is a retention duty, not a destruction schedule — but it is the point past which a carrier is no longer obliged to have the records, and in practice many do not. A preservation demand sent in the first weeks freezes them. Sent in month eight it is a letter about documents that lawfully no longer exist.

Hours-of-service limits are what those records show. A property-carrying driver may drive 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty, must take a 30-minute break before driving again once 8 cumulative hours of driving have passed, and is capped at 60 hours in 7 days or 70 in 8. The weekly clock restarts after 34 or more consecutive hours off.

A violation is not merely evidence of carelessness. It frequently explains the crash, and it is recorded in data the carrier controls and is only required to keep for half a year.

07 Who answers

Who can be responsible besides the driver

Behind the driver sits the motor carrier. Behind the carrier there may be a freight broker who arranged the load, the shipper who loaded the trailer, and a maintenance contractor who serviced the vehicle. Each can carry its own policy.

Whether the driver was an owner-operator changes who answers, not whether anyone does. Lease agreements, placarding and how much control the carrier actually exercised all bear on it, which is why the paperwork between driver, carrier and broker can matter as much as the crash report.

Identifying the right defendants early is not thoroughness for its own sake. Adding a party late is harder, and the two-year deadline in § 95.11 runs against all of them at once.

08 What still applies to you

Florida’s own rules still govern your side of the claim

A truck case does not take you outside Florida law. Treatment must still begin within fourteen days or PIP pays nothing (§ 627.736), and PIP still pays 80% of medical bills to its limit regardless of who caused the crash.

To recover pain and suffering from the at-fault party in a motor vehicle case you must still meet 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. Serious truck collisions frequently meet it, but it is a medical question answered by the treating record, not by the size of the vehicle.

And under § 768.81, a party found greater than 50% at fault for their own harm recovers nothing. That bar does not apply to medical negligence claims.

09 Where these cases come from

Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade freight moves through the Port of Miami and the warehouse corridors off the Palmetto and NW 12th Street, feeding I-95 and the Turnpike. Container and drayage traffic brings defendants a car case never has — terminal operators and chassis providers, easy to miss and hard to add late.

The Miami office · Homestead

Hillsborough

Hillsborough is a distribution county. The I-275 and I-4 interchange north of downtown carries the heaviest truck traffic in the area, Port Tampa Bay moves fuel and aggregate, and the warehouse corridors along the interstate run commercial traffic at all hours.

The Tampa office

10 The law

Florida laws that decide a truck accident case

  • 49 CFR 387.9

    Federal minimum financial responsibility

    At least $750,000 for a for-hire carrier moving non-hazardous property in interstate commerce. Higher for hazardous materials — $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 by category.

  • Fla. Stat. § 627.7415

    Florida commercial vehicle coverage

    For intrastate commercial vehicles: $50,000 per occurrence at 26,000 to under 35,000 lbs, $100,000 from 35,000 to under 44,000, and $300,000 at 44,000 and above. Vehicles subject to the federal rules must meet those instead.

  • 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1)

    Record retention

    Carriers must keep records of duty status and supporting documents for six months. ELD data, including the back-up copy, carries the same requirement.

  • 49 CFR 395.3

    Hours of service

    11 hours driving after 10 off; no driving past the 14th consecutive hour on duty; a 30-minute break once 8 cumulative driving hours have passed; 60 hours in 7 days or 70 in 8, restarting after 34 consecutive hours off.

  • Fla. Stat. § 627.736

    PIP and the fourteen-day rule

    Treatment must begin within fourteen days of the crash or PIP pays nothing. PIP then pays 80% of medical bills to its limit, regardless of fault.

  • Fla. Stat. § 627.737

    The injury threshold

    Noneconomic damages require 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.

  • Fla. Stat. § 768.81

    Comparative fault

    A party found greater than 50% at fault for their own harm recovers nothing. The bar does not apply to medical negligence claims under chapter 766.

  • Fla. Stat. § 95.11

    Deadline to sue

    Two years for most negligence claims arising on or after 24 March 2023. Four years before that date.

11 Step by step

What to do after a truck accident in Florida

  1. 01

    Photograph the door and the trailer

    The company name and the USDOT number on the cab door identify the carrier, and the USDOT number is what reveals whether its authority is interstate or intrastate. Photograph the trailer number too — it is often a different company.

  2. 02

    Begin treatment within fourteen days

    The PIP deadline applies in a truck case exactly as it does in any other. Miss it and the first layer of medical funding is gone whoever caused the crash.

  3. 03

    Get a preservation demand out

    In writing, to the carrier, naming the logs, ELD data, engine control module, dispatch records, driver qualification file and maintenance history. The six-month retention clock is already running.

  4. 04

    Do not let the vehicle be released

    The engine control module records speed, braking and throttle in the seconds before impact. Once the truck is repaired or sold, that data goes with it.

  5. 05

    Check the carrier’s FMCSA record

    Operating authority, insurance filings and inspection history are public. They establish which minimum applies and often reveal a pattern.

  6. 06

    Say nothing recorded to the carrier

    Many carriers have a rapid-response protocol that puts an investigator at the scene the same day. Their reconstructionist may be working before you have seen a doctor.

12 What proves it

  • Records of duty status and ELD data — six months, then the duty ends.
  • The engine control module, which lives only as long as the truck does.
  • The driver qualification file: licensing, medical certification, training, prior violations.
  • Maintenance and inspection records for the tractor and the trailer separately.
  • Dispatch messages and the load paperwork, which show the schedule the driver was held to.
  • The carrier’s FMCSA record — authority, insurance filings and inspection history, all public.
  • Any forward-facing or in-cab camera footage, which is retained at the carrier’s discretion.

13 What damages a claim

  • Waiting months, by which time the logging data is lawfully gone.
  • Letting the truck be repaired or released before the engine control module is downloaded.
  • Treating it as a claim against the driver alone.
  • Assuming the minimum coverage is the only coverage, without checking for excess layers.
  • Giving a recorded statement to a carrier that already has a reconstructionist on the file.

Frequently asked questions about Florida truck accidents

Does a truck that never leaves Florida still have to keep driver logs?

Yes. Fla. Stat. § 316.302(1)(b) adopts 49 C.F.R. parts 382–386 and 390–397 for intrastate commercial vehicles, which is the same body of rules an interstate carrier follows. Records of duty status, driver qualification files, inspection and maintenance records and drug and alcohol testing are all required either way.

The intrastate version is frozen as those rules stood on 31 December 2023, which can matter on fine points, but the core record-keeping duties are the same. The difference between interstate and intrastate is the insurance minimum and the hours limits — not whether the paperwork exists.

How many hours is a truck driver allowed to drive in Florida?

It depends on the carrier’s authority. An interstate driver may drive up to 11 hours, only after 10 consecutive hours off duty, and not at all after 14 consecutive hours on duty — 49 C.F.R. § 395.3(a).

A Florida intrastate driver may drive up to 12 hours after 10 hours off, with no driving after the sixteenth hour on duty, and a weekly cap of 70 hours in 7 days or 80 in 8 — Fla. Stat. § 316.302(2)(b).

So the same hours behind the wheel can be a violation for one carrier and lawful for another. Establishing which ceiling applied is one of the first things worth pinning down in a fatigue case.

What if it was a box truck or a van rather than a semi?

An intrastate vehicle under 26,001 pounds — by gross vehicle weight, weight rating and combination rating — and not placarded for hazardous materials falls outside most of the adopted federal rules under § 316.302(2)(f).

It still has to comply with the drug and alcohol rules in part 382, the driving rules in part 392, the equipment rules in part 393, and the inspection duties at 396.3(a)(1) and 396.9.

The practical difference is insurance. These vehicles are often behind an ordinary commercial auto policy with no federal filing, which makes finding every other available policy — the employer’s, the owner’s, your own uninsured motorist coverage — more important, not less.

How do I find out whether the carrier was interstate or intrastate?

The USDOT number on the cab door is the key. FMCSA publishes each carrier’s operating authority and insurance filings, so the answer is a public record rather than something the carrier has to volunteer.

It matters because it sets the minimum coverage — $750,000 for interstate for-hire non-hazardous freight, against as little as $300,000 for a comparable intrastate vehicle under Florida law.

The trucking company offered to pay my medical bills. Should I take it?

An early offer usually arrives before anyone knows the extent of the injury, and it is normally conditioned on a release that ends every claim against every defendant.

It also tends to arrive while the records that would prove a larger case are still inside their six-month retention window.

Does it matter that the driver was an owner-operator?

It changes who answers, not whether anyone does. Lease agreements, placarding and how much control the carrier exercised all bear on whether the carrier is responsible for the driver.

It is one reason the paperwork between driver, carrier and broker can matter as much as the crash report.

What if the truck was carrying hazardous materials?

The required coverage rises substantially — $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 depending on the category of material, under the same federal rule.

Hazmat loads also bring additional record-keeping and placarding requirements, which create more documentary evidence than an ordinary freight case.

Is my own PIP still involved?

Yes. PIP is no-fault and pays first regardless of who caused the crash, so the fourteen-day treatment deadline applies exactly as in a car case.

It pays 80% of medical bills to its limit. In a serious truck case that limit is reached quickly, and the claim against the carrier is what covers the rest.

How long will a truck case take?

Longer than a car case, generally. There are more parties, more documents and usually more disputed expert opinion about how the crash happened.

The medical treatment still sets the pace: a claim cannot be valued properly until the treating doctors can say what is permanent.

Does my immigration status affect the claim?

No. An injured person in Florida may bring a claim regardless of immigration status.

It is worth saying plainly, because the fear of raising it is a common reason a legitimate claim is never brought.

What does it cost?

A percentage of the settlement or judgment, owed only if there is one. The fee is payable only if there is a recovery; case expenses are governed by the written agreement, which sets out who is responsible for them if there is not. The percentage is in the retainer agreement and explained before anything is signed.

Case costs — records, expert reports, investigation, filing fees — are advanced by the firm and repaid out of a recovery. Who is responsible for them if there is no recovery is set out in the written agreement. They run higher in a truck case because the expert work is heavier.

14 Sources

Official Florida resources

This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice about your case. Published by Jose A. Dapena, P.A. Last updated October 2026.

15 Related matters

The full list is on the personal injury page.

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A free review of your truck accidents case, with no obligation, and no fee and no costs unless there is a recovery. English or Spanish, whichever you would rather use. You speak with Jose A. Dapena directly at every stage, not with an intake department — and if there is no claim worth bringing, he will tell you that.

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