Auto Accidents

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of injury and death in the United States for people ages 1-34. Approximately 38% of traffic fatalities are caused in some manner by alcohol.

The law firm of Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz uses our experience in handling accident cases to investigate every possible factor and cause of an accident to ensure that our clients receive full compensation for your injuries.

We understand that after serious injuries you don’t wish to encounter the strain of making important decisions alone, so we will make every effort to help you whenever possible.

In Automobile accidents a person who negligently operates a vehicle may be required to pay any damages by their negligence, either to person or property.

Some factors that may effect the outcome of a case are:

• Speed of the car
• Drugs or alcohol use
• Failing to signal
• Disregarding driving conditions
• Disobeying traffic signs or signals

A mechanic could also be liable if he or she does not do a repair properly.

An automobile manufacturer or supplier may be responsible for injuries caused by a defect in the automobile, or a component of the automobile. This would fall under a product liability suit. The manufacturer of a defective or poorly designed product could be liable for any injures the product causes, regardless of whether or not the manufacturer was negligent.

If you or a loved one is a victim of an automobile accident, call Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice, & Purtz now at (239) 334-1146 or Click Here to fill out a simple case form.

Our consultation is free of charge, and if we agree to accept your case, we will accept only a percentage of your award. If we do not win, there will be no fee.

Automobile Insurance Coverage

Automobile insurance laws in Florida require the owner of a vehicle to have a certain amount of personal injury protection. Person injury protection provides compensation to you in the event you are in an accident. The minimum amount of personal injury coverage required by law is $10,000.00 but you can purchase higher amounts of liability insurance in order to protect your personal assets against the risk of higher damages being awarded against you in the event you cause another serious injury. Personal injury protection is just one type of insurance Florida requires drivers to have. Florida law also requires you to have insurance that covers medical, surgical, funeral, and disability benefits regardless of fault. This is known as no-fault insurance.

In most states, auto insurance functions under a traditional fault-based system. Insurance companies make payments based on each person's degree of fault in a particular motor vehicle accident. However, long and costly court battles are often required to determine who is at fault in many accidents. In an attempt to reduce this problem, some thirteen states (i.e. Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Colorado) have adopted no-fault insurance laws- also called “personal injury protection” or “PIP”. Under Florida’s no-fault insurance statute, if you are hurt in an accident, your insurance automatically will pay 80% of your reasonable medical expenses related to injuries sustained in the accident and 60% of your lost earnings subject to the limits of the no-fault coverage and any applicable deductible (or up to the specified policy limit) regardless of who caused the accident.
If you are killed in a car accident, no-fault pays survivor's benefits, which is income which you would have provided to your family. These benefits are usually limited to a maximum amount per month for a set time period. Your policy will pay these benefits no matter where in the United States the accident takes place. Your policy will not pay benefits if you are the owner or registrant of an uninsured motor vehicle that was involved in an accident. Therefore, it is important that you have insurance coverage on all vehicles that you own.
If you are a family member, no-fault insurance also covers relatives in your household who do not have their own no-fault policy. Personal Injury Protection benefits can be paid by your policy even if family members are passengers in another person's car or pedestrians when they are hurt. If you damage someone else's property, no-fault will pay up to a specified limit for damages your car does to other people's tangible property such as buildings, trees, road signs, etc, and will pay to repair or replace other people's vehicle but only if the vehicle was properly parked.

Many people mistakenly believe that if they meet the requirements under Florida law that they have full coverage. As the descriptions of the various categories of automobile insurance below indicate, the Florida requirements constitute a very bare minimum and rarely adequately protect persons involved in automobile accidents. The statutory minimum alone does not constitute full coverage. Essential coverage, including bodily injury coverage, uninsured motorist coverage and collision are not required by Florida law.

Limits to No-Fault Insurance

No-Fault Insurance carries several limits that all drivers should be aware of. No-fault insurance generally does not pay for: Repairs to your vehicle after an accident no matter whose fault it was; Repairs to another person's vehicle after an accident, no matter whose fault it was, unless the vehicle was properly parked; and Costs for replacement of your vehicle if it was stolen.
In exchange for a guaranteed payment, you must give up some of your rights to sue the other driver involved in the accident. You may be allowed to sue for non-economic damages if the amount of these damages exceeds a specified tort threshold. Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have verbal thresholds. The other eight states use a monetary threshold: Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota and Utah. Three states have a "choice" no-fault law. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, motorists may reject the lawsuit threshold and retain the right to sue for any auto-related injury.
In order to file suit against the driver at fault, Florida’s no-fault insurance law requires that you must show that you sustained a "serious" injury. Exactly when a serious injury is present is a legal-medical question, but the party must show a sustained permanent injury or significant scarring or disfigurement, or death before a valid claim can be made for quality of life damages such as pain and suffering.
When we represent a person who is injured in an accident, one of the first things we do is investigate all possible insurance coverage that is applicable. There are two categories of auto insurance - first party coverage and third party coverage. First party coverage covers you and your property (such as medical expenses, damage to your vehicle and the insurance company's duty to defend you in the event that you are sued as the result of your operation of a vehicle, etc.). Third party coverage is for your responsibility to pay for injury caused to other people (and vice versa), whether in your vehicle, or another vehicle involved in the accident. The coverage (and its exclusions) is set forth in your insurance policy. In exchange for the payment of a premium, the insurance company promises to provide compensation in the event of certain occurrences. Though a full recitation of insurance coverage and laws would occupy several large text volumes, the following is brief synopsis of the most typical coverage and issues. Many people mistakenly believe that if they meet the requirements under Florida law that they have full coverage. As the descriptions of the various categories of automobile insurance below indicate, the Florida requirements constitute a very bare minimum and rarely adequately protect persons involved in automobile accidents. The statutory minimum alone does not constitute full coverage.

Personal Injury Protection

As stated, this type of insurance is required by law. If you are injured by the negligence of a defendant, we will make a claim under the bodily injury liability coverage of the negligent defendant's insurance policy. Personal injury coverage is not health insurance, and it is not designed to pay for your medical bills as they are incurred. It is designed for a one time settlement or payment for all of your damages. Personal injury insurance minimum required by law in Florida is ten thousand dollars for bodily injury or death of one person in any one accident. Lawsuits in Florida must be filed against the negligent driver and may not also name the insurance carrier as a defendant. In fact, the jury is not allowed to know that there is insurance coverage available on the defendant. If the jury renders a verdict in excess of the defendant's liability policy limit, the defendant is then personally liable out of his or her own assets for the additional amount.
Medical Payments (Med-Pay) Coverage
When purchasing automobile insurance for yourself, Florida requires you to have an additional type of coverage other than liability insurance. One of these types of coverage is called medical payments coverage. Medical payments coverage is a form of health coverage called by various terms, including "med-pay", "personal injury protection (PIP)", or on occasion "economic loss protection benefits". This coverage is available to the insured driver (the individual who holds the policy which includes med-pay coverage) and any passengers in the insured's vehicle for injuries sustained, regardless of the fault of the driver. It is important to note that the insurance policy of the negligent party does not pay med- pay or PIP benefits to an injured plaintiff. These benefits are limited to the driver or passengers in the insured vehicle, regardless of fault. The plaintiff looks to his own insurance policy or the policy on the vehicle in which he was a passenger for med- pay or PIP benefits.
In Florida, your policy must cover eighty percent of all reasonable expenses for medically necessary medical, surgical, X-ray, dental, and rehabilitative services, including prosthetic devices, medically necessary ambulance, hospital, and nursing services.


Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Benefits

Two other related types of voluntary coverage you can (and should) purchase are uninsured and underinsured motorist benefits. These types of coverage protect you against a negligent defendant who illegally does not have liability insurance coverage or has minimum coverage that is inadequate to fully compensate you for your injuries. If you are involved in an accident with an uninsured but negligent individual, we would make a claim for you under your own uninsured motorist coverage. Your own insurance carrier would then have to pay any judgment, which may be rendered, up to the limits of the policy, which you purchased.
If the person who caused the accident has liability insurance, but the policy limit of his or her liability insurance is less than the uninsured motorist coverage of your policy, we can make an additional claim under your own policy for what is called underinsured motorist benefits, in the event that your damages exceed the limits of the other party’s liability coverage. A complicated body of case law has evolved dealing with this type of benefit, and the experience of an attorney familiar with these issues is important in order to obtain the maximum amount of recovery for you.


Collision Coverage

Collision coverage is a type of voluntary coverage you can purchase which provides for the repair or replacement of your own vehicle after an accident, regardless of whether or not you are at fault. This is different than property liability insurance coverage discussed above. An innocent victim of an accident may present a claim for the property damage under his or her own collision coverage or under the negligent defendant's property damage liability insurance coverage. Your own collision coverage normally includes a deductible, whereas property damage liability insurance coverage does not. In an automobile accident case, after a claim has been paid under collision coverage, the insurance carrier who paid the claim may proceed against the property damage liability insurance carrier for the negligent defendant to recover the amount paid out. This process is called subrogation, and does not affect your recovery.
In all automobile accident cases it is essential that measures be taken promptly to preserve evidence, investigate the accident in question, and to enable physicians or other expert witnesses to thoroughly evaluate any injuries. If you or a loved one is a victim of an automobile accident, call Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz at (239) 334-1146.

Florida Accident Law Overview

Every year millions of people are injured in motor vehicle accidents – many very seriously. In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, every 10 seconds someone in the United States is involved in a car accident. In 2000, there were an estimated 6,279,000 police reported traffic crashes, in which 41,611 people were killed and 3,236,000 people were injured. Other startling facts are as follows:
· Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of injury death in the United States for people ages 1-34.
· Motor vehicle crashes took the lives of 5,606 teenagers and 2,027 children in 1999. Older adults, as a group, are also at higher risk of dying from motor vehicle crashes.
· In the United States, 5,220 pedestrians died from traffic-related injuries and another 69,000 pedestrians sustained non-fatal injuries in 1999.
· In 1999, 38% of traffic fatalities were alcohol related; either the driver or an affected person (e.g., a pedestrian or a bicyclist) had a blood alcohol concentration of at least 0.10 gram per deciliter (g/dl).
At Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz we use our experience in handling accident cases to investigate every possible contributing cause of an accident to ensure that you will receive full compensation for your injuries. Evaluating all of the facts involved in the cause of a motor vehicle accident requires skill and experience. Our office will take over the investigation of your case so that you can concentrate on recovering from your injuries. (delete this line )We can assist you in finding an appropriate medical specialist to treat you, and (add capital “W” here We can make arrangements with your medical care providers to wait for payment until your case is resolved through settlement or trial.
Automobile accidents are generally decided using the law of negligence. A person who negligently operates a vehicle may be required to pay any damages caused by their negligence, either to person or property. Generally, people who operate automobiles must exercise “reasonable care under the circumstances." Failure to use reasonable care is the basis in most lawsuits for damages caused by an automobile accident.
Courts look to a number of factors in determining whether a driver was negligent. Some examples of these factors include, but are not limited to, the following:
· Driving too fast or too slow
· Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
· Failing to signal while turning
· Disregarding weather or traffic conditions
· Disobeying traffic signs or signals
· Failing to drive on the right side of the road

A driver may also be liable for an accident caused by intentional or reckless conduct. A driver who is reckless is one who drives unsafely, with willful and wanton disregard for the probability that the driving may cause an accident. In certain cases, accidents are caused by factors unrelated to the conduct of any particular driver. For example, under the law of product liability an automobile manufacturer or supplier may be responsible for injuries caused by a defect in the automobile, or a component of the automobile. The Firestone Tire litigation liability suit is a lawsuit brought against the seller of a product for selling an illegedly defective product that caused physical injury to a consumer or user. If a manufacturer of a product creates a defective product - either in developing, designing or labeling the product - the manufacturer is liable for any injures the product causes, regardless of whether or not the manufacturer was negligent.
In another example, if a mechanic fails to properly repair a vehicle, and the failure causes an accident, the person who improperly repaired the automobile, and his repair shop, may be liable for injuries sustained. Other factors such as poorly maintained roads and malfunctioning traffic control signals can contribute to the cause. Improper design, maintenance, construction, signage, lighting or other highway defect, as well as improper striping on the road's passing lanes, a sharp obstruction or problem with the roadway that obstructs drivers' vision, or poorly placed trees and utility poles can also cause serious accidents. Finally, if an accident is caused by an intoxicated driver, a bar or social host may be liable for damages sustained if they served an obviously intoxicated guest, who then drives and causes an accident.

In all automobile accident cases it is essential that measures be taken promptly to preserve evidence, investigate the accident in question, and to enable physicians or other expert witnesses to thoroughly evaluate any injuries. If you or a loved one is a victim of an automobile accident, call Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz at (239)334-1146.

Auto Injury Information

Motorcycle Accidents

Due to the tenuous protection of motorcycle drivers, they are 21 times more likely to be injured or killed in an accident than those in automobiles. Thirty-nine percent of motorcyclists in accidents resulting in death were speeding versus only 20 percent of automobile drivers. To add to the worries, far more motorcyclists drink while driving than other drivers.

Of course there are two sides to all stories, such as passenger vehicle drivers not seeing motorcycles clearly or not at all.

The bottom line is that whoever causes the accident should be liable. Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz can help protect the rights of those injured due to negligence.

Of the 50,000 motorcyclists who are injured in traffic crashes each year, approximately 2,000 motorcyclists are killed. Many of these injuries and deaths could be prevented if motorcycle riders and their passengers wore helmets. In 2001, more than 3,181 motorcyclists were killed, and another 60,000 were injured in traffic crashes in the United States. More than 7,000 of those injured were riders between ages 15 and 20, and 36 percent of those who died were between ages 16 and 29. Ninety percent of the people who died were male; nearly all of them were operating the bike. Among females who died, 72 percent were passengers.

To Prevent or lessen the results of an accident for a motorcyclist:
*Wear a Helmet, it give the rider almost a 30% chance of survival versus those who don’t.
*Don’t exceed posted limits. When not posted Florida law requires the cyclist to drive at speeds which are prudent and reasonable,
School Crossings 15mph
Residential areas 25mph
Business areas 25mph
Highway 65 – 70mph
· Wear eye and face protection.
· Wear long pants, gloves, boots,
· Wear a durable long-sleeved jacket.
· Keep your headlight on when driving
· Don’t drink and drive
· Watch out for road damage and hazards
· Don’t carry passengers unless necessary
· Have passengers hold on to your waist at all times
· Don’t let passengers be a distraction.

If you have an accident fill out our simple case form or
call Goldstein, Buckley, Cechman, Rice & Purtz at (239) 334-1146.

Office information on our auto accident lawyers:

• Cape Coral Auto Accident Lawyers
• Fort Myers Auto Accident Lawyers
• Naples Auto Accident Lawyers
• Port Charlotte Auto Accident Lawyers
• Lehigh Acres Auto Accident Lawyers

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