Nobody plans to need a guide about car crashes. If you’re reading this, the wreck has probably already happened. Maybe your car is in a tow yard. Maybe you walked away feeling fine, and this morning your neck told a different story. Meanwhile the phone keeps ringing: adjusters, body shops, maybe a billboard firm or two, all wanting something from you.
I’m Rory Safir. Before I built my own practice, I was an Assistant Public Defender in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Tampa, where I handled hundreds of cases and learned how evidence gets made, tested, and lost. I put that evidence-first habit into Safir Guide No. 17, a plain-English map of the hours, days, and weeks after a Florida crash. Here are three things from it that I want you to know today, whether you ever download it or not.
Three things from the guide
1. You have 14 days to see a doctor, or your own coverage vanishes
Florida is a no-fault state, so your own Personal Injury Protection coverage pays your early bills. But under Fla. Stat. 627.736, you must get initial medical care within 14 days of the crash or PIP benefits are forfeited. Not reduced. Forfeited. This is the single most common way careful people lose coverage they already paid for, because adrenaline masks pain and some injuries hide for days. And nobody sends a warning letter. Your insurer has no duty to remind you. The guide walks through what PIP pays, and the $2,500 versus $10,000 wrinkle that turns on how your first visits are documented.
2. PIP never pays a dollar for pain and suffering
PIP covers 80 percent of medical bills and 60 percent of lost wages, capped at $10,000 combined. The human cost of a serious injury isn’t in there at all. To reach the at-fault driver for full damages, you must cross the serious injury threshold in Fla. Stat. 627.737(2). There are four ways to do it, and you only need one. The guide explains each, and how the threshold gets proven visit by visit in your medical records.
3. Your deadline to file was cut in half in 2023
For a crash on or after March 24, 2023, you have two years to file suit, not the four many people still assume. A claim filed even a day late is almost always dismissed. And the evidence that wins cases, camera footage, witnesses, vehicle data, dies far faster than that.
Get the whole map, free
The full guide covers the insurer playbook, partial fault under Florida’s new fifty percent rule, and the four questions that decide whether you have a case. It’s free, and one email unlocks the entire Safir Guides library at thesafirlawyer.com/free-guides. Prefer to read on the site? The full web coverage lives in the car accident section.
And if your situation is urgent, skip the reading. Call or text me at (727) 761-4318 for a free case review. Every case is different, and I’ll give you a straight answer about yours.
You’re better Safir than sorry.
About the author
Rory Safir is a St. Petersburg attorney who handles injury claims and criminal defense across the Tampa Bay area. He is one of a handful of ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in Florida and a former Assistant Public Defender in Tampa, and he brings that same evidence-driven approach to fighting for injured clients.