What Is in This Section
The guides on this site explain how particular kinds of truck crash and particular kinds of injury work. This section is the reference layer underneath them: the vocabulary, the citations, the records, and the clocks. It is written to be checked rather than trusted — every statute and regulation referenced anywhere on this site is indexed here with its citation, so you can read the source text yourself.
If you are in the first days after a crash, the two pages that matter most are the evidence checklist and the deadline reference tool. If you are trying to make sense of a letter from an insurer or a line in a crash report, start with the glossary.
Glossary
Thirty trucking and legal terms in plain language, from bill of lading to UM/UIM.
Statute & Regulation Index
Florida statutes and 49 CFR parts, each with what it governs and where it applies.
Florida Crash Report
How to get it, the 60-day confidentiality rule, and what to do about errors.
Deadline Reference Tool
Enter a crash date; see the PIP, evidence, and filing clocks it starts.
Evidence Checklist
A printable list of what to photograph, request, and preserve.
Truck Accident FAQ
Short answers to the questions that come up most often.
The Deadlines Worth Memorizing
Four numbers govern the early weeks of a Florida truck accident claim. Everything else can be looked up.
The order is the point. The medical deadline expires first, the evidence deadline expires next, and the legal deadline — the one everyone knows about — expires last. A claim can be filed comfortably within two years and still be missing the carrier's own logs.
Shiner Law Group, P.A.
Founded by David I. Shiner, Esq. · AV Preeminent® rated · Florida Bar member since 2002
Shiner Law Group was founded by David I. Shiner, Esq., a Nova Southeastern University law graduate, a member of The Florida Bar since 2002, and AV Preeminent® rated by Martindale-Hubbell. The firm represents injured people across Florida from offices in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Wellington, and Belle Glade, and handles truck accident cases on contingency: free consultations, and no fee unless there is a recovery.
How to Use These Pages
Truck cases differ from car cases mainly in how much of the decisive information sits inside a company rather than at the scene. Two drivers in a passenger collision generally know between them most of what happened. In a truck crash, the driver's hours for the preceding week, the brake adjustment history, the dispatcher's pressure on the schedule, the load's weight distribution, and the carrier's prior violations are all facts held by the defendant and governed by federal recordkeeping rules. That is why the sequence below starts with identification and preservation rather than with argument.
- Identify the carrier. The USDOT number on the tractor door and the crash report is the key to the carrier's federal safety record. Our post on reading a carrier's safety record walks through what is public.
- Preserve before you request. Sending a written preservation demand comes before discovery, because the retention clocks run regardless. See the retention clocks.
- Read the statute, not the summary. Every citation on this site links to the page explaining it, and the index gives the citation so you can read the official text.
- Confirm your dates with a lawyer. The deadline tool shows which clocks a crash date starts. It cannot know who the defendant is, whether the injured person is a minor, or whether a claim accrued later than the crash.
The Records a Florida Truck Case Runs On
A truck accident claim is a documents case. Most of what determines its outcome exists on paper or in a database somewhere before anyone talks to a lawyer, and the useful early work is knowing what those records are, who holds them, and how long they last. They fall into four groups.
| Held By | Records |
|---|---|
| Yours | Medical records and bills from every provider, proof of the 14-day treatment start, wage and employment records, your own photographs, and your insurance declarations page showing PIP and any UM/UIM coverage. |
| The agency's | The Florida Traffic Crash Report and its supplements, scene photographs, body camera and dashcam footage, dispatch recordings, and any traffic homicide investigation file. |
| The carrier's | Records of duty status and ELD data, dispatch and load documents, driver qualification file, maintenance and inspection records, post-accident testing records, and telematics or camera footage. |
| The vehicles' | Engine control module and event data recorder downloads from the tractor, and physical evidence on both vehicles — tire condition, underride guard deformation, cargo securement hardware. |
The first two groups can be requested at your own pace. The second two are on federal retention schedules and on a tow yard's release schedule, which is why the retention clocks matter more than the filing deadline in the first months.
Five Things That Cost Florida Claims
These are not exotic. They are the ordinary, avoidable steps that narrow a claim before anyone realizes a claim is happening.
- Waiting more than 14 days to see a doctor. Florida PIP under Fla. Stat. § 627.736 generally requires initial services within 14 days. People delay because they feel able to walk away from the scene, and soft tissue and head injuries frequently present later. The deadline does not adjust for that.
- Giving a recorded statement early. Under the modified comparative negligence rule in Fla. Stat. § 768.81, a casual description of your own driving is worth more to the other side than it used to be, because fault above 50% now bars recovery entirely. See dealing with adjusters.
- Letting the vehicles go. Once the tractor is repaired or the passenger vehicle is released to salvage, the physical evidence and the electronic data go with them. A written hold at the storage facility is cheap and time-sensitive.
- Assuming the crash report settles fault. The report is the investigating officer's account. It is evidence, and it is often persuasive, but liability under Florida law is decided on all the evidence.
- Suing the name on the trailer. Tractor, trailer, driver, carrier, and broker are frequently five different entities. Identifying the right ones is covered in who is liable.
Corrections and Accuracy
Reference pages age differently from guides. A guide can stay useful for years while a single statutory subsection underneath it changes, which is why every citation on this site is written out rather than paraphrased, and why the review date appears under every heading.
This site cites primary sources so that errors are findable. Florida statutes are amended and federal regulations are revised; a page here reflects the law as of its review date, which appears under every heading. If you find something on this site that is out of date or wrong, write to joseph@shinerlawgroup.com and it will be corrected.
Nothing on this site is legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It is general information about how Florida and federal law treat truck crashes. What it does for a particular case depends on facts that only a lawyer reviewing the file can assess.
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