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Each year, there are hundreds of thousands of auto accidents in Florida. These accidents lead to hundreds of thousands of injuries, and they kill thousands of drivers, passengers, bicyclists and pedestrians.

Florida sees more than its fair share of auto accidents. For many years, the Sunshine State has held the distinction of having one of the highest car crash rates in the nation, and since 2014 Florida has seen the steepest increase in accident-related fatalities of any state nationwide. While the National Safety Council estimates that fatal accident rates have increased 18 percent nationwide over the last two years, Florida’s rate has increased by an almost unbelievable 43 percent.

Most car accidents involving multiple vehicles are the result of driver negligence. From texting and driving to being drunk behind the wheel, all types of mistakes can lead to all types of dangerous collisions.

Following a car accident, you need to make smart decisions about protecting your legal rights. To help you get started, our attorneys have provided answers to a number of frequently-asked questions (FAQs). For legal advice about your situation, we encourage you to contact us promptly for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Federal regulations permit commercial truck drivers to spend up to 11 consecutive hours behind the wheel and up to 70 hours driving over the course of an 8-day period. That is a lot of driving, much of which is done at night and on long, monotonous stretches of highway. Furthermore, research has shown that many truck drivers exceed the federal “hours of service” limitations, spending even more time behind the wheel.

Texting behind the wheel is a major problem in Florida and around the country. According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), on average, distracted drivers injure more than 1,000 people every single day, and texting is widely recognized as one of the most prevalent forms of distracted driving.

When you are injured in a motorcycle accident, in many ways, the odds are stacked against you. As a result, to make sure you are able to collect the compensation you deserve, you need to protect yourself as much as possible.

If you have been injured in a car accident, you are not alone in wondering, “Should I hire an attorney to represent me?” or “Should I just try to deal with the insurance companies on my own?”

As recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, a new Silicon Valley startup led by one of the founders of Google’s self-driving car program is aiming to retrofit existing 18-wheelers with autonomous driving technology. Other companies are already in the process of developing the technology to role new self-driving heavy trucks off of the assembly line.

Each year, drunk drivers kill hundreds of innocent drivers and passengers in Florida and they leave thousands more victims suffering from serious, and often life-changing, injuries. As someone who has been injured in a drunk driving accident or who has lost a loved one to the negligence of a drunk driver, you have rights, and it is important for both you and the community as a whole that you stand up for those rights in court.

In most car accidents, victims recover their losses through the at-fault driver’s insurance company. The at-fault driver’s auto insurance coverage will often be sufficient to provide full compensation (provided that the insurance company agrees to pay what the victim is owed); but, in some cases, a victim’s losses will exceed the amount covered by the at-fault driver’s policy.

When you are injured in an accident that is clearly 100 percent someone else’s fault, as long as you don’t delay or make other mistakes that could jeopardize your claim, the law entitles you to recover financial compensation for your accident-related losses. But, what if you were 10 percent at fault, or 50 percent, or even 90 percent? How do you even know how much blame to assign to each person involved in the accident?  

Whiplash is a serious and potentially long-term injury that is common in car accidents and other types of vehicle collisions. If you have experienced symptoms of whiplash after an accident in which someone else was to blame, you could be entitled to financial compensation for your medical bills, pain and suffering, and other losses.  

If you have been injured in a car accident, it can be difficult to know whether you are entitled to compensation for your losses. In many cases, figuring out exactly what happened can be a challenge, and getting a clear picture of your legal rights may require a thorough investigation.

Unfortunately, hit-and-run accidents are a persistent problem in Florida. The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports that there were more than 92,000 hit-and-run crashes in Florida in 2015, with 186 of these accidents resulting in fatalities. This means that hit-and-run drivers in Florida killed someone roughly every other day.

For many people, the start of Daylight Saving Time signals the unofficial start of Spring. This year, Daylight Saving Time started on March 13, 2016, and here in the Florida Panhandle we experienced Spring-like temperatures in the 60s and 70s.

It happened. You were injured in an accident. Maybe someone rear-ended you, you fell on a slippery floor, or your neighbor’s dog attacked you. Whatever happened, it happened, and now you are left to deal with the consequences. So, what do you do? How do you recover your medical expenses (and other losses) and protect your legal rights?

We all know that distracted driving is extremely dangerous. In the time that it takes the average person to read a text message or dial a phone number, a vehicle traveling at highway speeds can more than cover the distance of an entire football field. With researchers estimating that roughly 660,000 drivers are using their phones while behind the wheel at any given moment in time during the day, this means that distracted drivers are covering thousands upon thousands of miles without paying attention to the road.

If your motorcycle was damaged in an accident, it is important to understand the options that are available for recovering the costs to repair or replace your bike. As with claims for personal injuries, most property damage claims are resolved through insurance. However, different rules apply to property claims, and will you need to know which insurance company (or companies) to work with in order to secure maximum compensation.

By many accounts, 2015 is expected to have been one of the deadliest years in recent memory for drivers and passengers in Florida and throughout the country. By the middle of the year, the number of traffic-related fatalities was on pace to set the highest annual mark since 2007. While we are still awaiting the final national data, we now know that there were 2,604 fatal accidents in Florida in 2015. This is higher than the number each year from 2011 through 2014.