Port Richey bicycle accident lawyer

Pasco County cyclists ride two different worlds. One is the paved trail system: the Suncoast Trail running alongside the parkway for more than 40 miles, the Starkey Trail through Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park, and the connections that let a rider go from Trinity to Hernando County without touching a highway. The other is the road network you have to use to get there: Little Road, Starkey Boulevard, SR-54, Moon Lake Road, and the US-19 crossings the Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization has singled out as a place where cyclists die.

When a driver fails to see you in either world, Conde-Huggins Accident Injury Lawyers handles the claim. Our office is at 6609 Ridge Road in Port Richey. Call (240) 421-5511 for a free consultation; there is no attorney's fee unless we win.

The Florida bicycle laws that decide your case

Liability in a bicycle crash usually comes down to a handful of statutes. Knowing them before you talk to an adjuster matters.

A bicycle is a vehicle. Fla. Stat. § 316.2065 gives a cyclist on the road all the rights and duties of a vehicle driver. You are entitled to the lane; drivers are required to treat you as traffic.

Three feet to pass. Fla. Stat. § 316.083(1) requires a driver overtaking a bicycle to leave at least three feet of clearance. A sideswipe during a pass is a violation on its face.

Bike lanes. Where a bike lane exists, a driver turning across it must yield to a cyclist already in it. The right hook, where a car passes a rider and then turns right across the lane, is the most common serious crash pattern on Little Road and SR-54, and the yield rule puts fault on the driver.

Sidewalks. Riding on a sidewalk is permitted in most of Pasco County. A cyclist on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk has the rights and duties of a pedestrian, which means drivers must yield at crosswalks and the cyclist must yield to people walking.

Lights at night. Between sunset and sunrise, a bicycle must have a white front lamp visible from 500 feet and a red rear reflector and lamp visible from 600 feet. Riding without them is the first thing an insurer raises after a nighttime crash.

Helmets. Required for riders under 16 only. The statute says the failure to wear one may not be considered evidence of negligence or contributory negligence.

Harassment of cyclists. Florida law prohibits a driver from harassing, taunting or throwing anything at a cyclist. Intentional conduct opens the door to punitive damages and a criminal referral.

Where Pasco cyclists get hit

The crashes we see cluster in predictable places:

• US-19 crossings at Ridge Road, Trouble Creek Road, Main Street and Washington Street, where a rider must cross six lanes of 45 to 55 mph traffic to reach the other side of the corridor. The MPO's own fatality review names cyclists crossing US-19 as a recurring pattern.
• Little Road from SR-54 north to Hudson, a high-speed arterial with long gaps between signals and driveways every few hundred feet.
• Starkey Boulevard and the approach to Starkey Park, where trail riders mix with commuter traffic.
• Suncoast Trail road crossings at SR-52, SR-54 and the county roads the trail intersects at grade.
• Downtown New Port Richey, where on-street parking on Main Street and Grand Boulevard creates dooring crashes.
• Subdivision collectors in Trinity, Wesley Chapel and Land O' Lakes, where drivers back out of driveways across sidewalks used by riders.

Who may be responsible for a bicycle crash

The driver. Most claims run against the motorist: speeding, texting, a left turn across your path, a pass with no clearance, a door opened into the lane. The driver's bodily injury liability coverage is the primary source of recovery, when it exists.

A commercial employer. If the vehicle was a delivery van, a landscaping truck pulling a trailer, or a work pickup, the company that employs the driver is responsible for the driver's negligence on the job, and commercial policies are far larger than personal ones.

A government entity. A trail crossing without warning signage, a storm grate with slots parallel to the direction of travel, a construction detour that dumps riders into a travel lane: these point to FDOT, Pasco County, a city, or a water management district. Claims against them fall under Fla. Stat. § 768.28, with its $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident caps, mandatory written notice, and a waiting period before suit.

A manufacturer. A fork that snaps, a carbon handlebar that fails, a helmet that cracks on a low-speed fall. Product claims require preserving the bicycle exactly as it was after the crash. Do not repair it or throw anything away.

A contractor. Uneven pavement at a utility cut, loose gravel left at a resurfacing job, or a trench plate with an edge can cause a crash with no car involved at all. The contractor's general liability policy, not an auto policy, responds, and the no-fault threshold does not apply because no motor vehicle was involved.

The at-fault party's insurer will try to blame the cyclist in every one of these scenarios. Call (240) 421-5511 before you give any statement.

PIP, UM and the insurance a cyclist can actually use

Florida's no-fault system reaches cyclists struck by motor vehicles, which surprises most riders.

Your household auto policy's personal injury protection under Fla. Stat. § 627.736 pays 80 percent of medical bills and 60 percent of lost income, up to $10,000, when a car hits you on your bike, if you own an insured vehicle or live with a relative who does. If there is no such policy, the striking vehicle's PIP generally applies. The 14-day treatment rule applies, and so does the emergency medical condition rule that limits benefits to $2,500 unless a physician, physician assistant, dentist or APRN documents an emergency.

Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage under Fla. Stat. § 627.727 is the coverage that saves bicycle cases. Florida does not make private drivers carry bodily injury liability, so a rider with a broken pelvis may find that the driver who hit them has nothing but PIP and property damage coverage. UM on your own policy, or on a resident relative's, pays what the driver's policy would have paid. It also covers hit-and-runs. If you ride and you do not carry UM, add it before your next ride.

The permanent-injury threshold in Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2) applies to a cyclist's claim against a driver. Pain and suffering is recoverable only with a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, or death. Fractures with hardware, head injuries and shoulder reconstructions commonly meet it. The records need to say so, and we work with your doctors to make sure they do.

Riders who also own a motorcycle sometimes ask whether the rules are the same. They are not: motorcycles sit outside Florida's no-fault system entirely. See our motorcycle accident page.

How the 51 percent rule plays out in a bike case

Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6) reduces your recovery by your share of fault and eliminates it if you are more than 50 percent responsible. In a bicycle case, the insurer's percentages are a negotiating position, not a verdict.

Consider a rider heading north on Little Road at dusk with a rear light but no front lamp, struck by a driver turning left out of a shopping center. The insurer offers 60 percent fault to the cyclist for the missing light. The driver's event data shows no braking. A witness says the driver was looking at the oncoming lane, not the bike lane. The front lamp would have been behind the driver's line of sight anyway. The honest allocation is most of the fault on the driver, and the claim is worth most of its full value. That analysis only happens when someone gathers the data.

What to do after a bicycle crash in Pasco County

1. Get checked the same day. HCA Florida Bayonet Point in Hudson is the trauma center; Morton Plant North Bay and HCA Florida Trinity handle most other ER visits. Tell them a vehicle hit you.
2. Make sure a report is written. FHP Troop C covers most of the county; Port Richey and New Port Richey police handle city streets; the Pasco Sheriff's Office handles unincorporated areas. A crash with no report is a crash the insurer will say never happened.
3. Keep the bike, helmet and clothing as they are. Do not let a shop repair the frame or a well-meaning friend hose off the road grit. Photograph the damage, the road, the vehicle and its plate.
4. Save your ride data. Garmin, Wahoo, Strava and phone fitness apps record speed and position. That file can establish exactly where you were in the lane and how fast you were going.
5. Collect witnesses and cameras. Trail users, shop employees and doorbell cameras near the crossing. Footage overwrites in days.
6. Say nothing to the insurer. Not a recorded statement, not an "I'm okay." Route every call to us.

What a bicycle injury claim may include

Medical care from the ER through surgery, therapy and future treatment; lost wages and reduced earning capacity when the injury is permanent; replacement of the bicycle and gear; and, when the threshold is met, pain, inconvenience, mental anguish and the loss of the riding and the life you had. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.0427 the medical expense evidence is limited to amounts paid or payable, so how care is billed matters, and we plan treatment with that in mind. When a cyclist is killed, the estate's personal representative brings a claim under the Florida Wrongful Death Act, Fla. Stat. §§ 768.16–768.26, within two years; our wrongful death page explains who recovers.

The deadline

Two years from the crash under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a) for negligence claims arising on or after March 24, 2023, and two years for wrongful death. Government claims require notice under Fla. Stat. § 768.28 before suit. Evidence has a far shorter shelf life than the statute.

If you were walking rather than riding, our pedestrian accident page covers the same insurance rules from that side. For crashes with cars where you were the driver, start with our car accident page.

Talk to a Port Richey bicycle accident lawyer today

Clementine Conde has practiced in Florida courts since 1992 and handles every bicycle case this firm takes. We are on Ridge Road between US-19 and Little Road, and we meet injured riders at home or in the hospital anywhere in Pasco County. Free consultation, no attorney's fee unless we recover compensation, Spanish spoken, phones answered around the clock. Call (240) 421-5511 or contact us online.