SettlementLift resources
After a car accident in Miami
Find the right place to request your crash report, explore local law firms and get your next steps organized in Miami.
By SettlementLift. Published · Updated .
Finding the right local record
Miami-Dade’s official records guidance separates City of Miami requests from county requests and identifies the Miami Police Records Unit for traffic-accident reports. Confirm which agency investigated before choosing a records service. Miami city is not the whole of Miami-Dade County, and county crash totals should not be presented as city figures.
Miami-Dade: Records guidance for City of Miami ↗Distinguish the tunnel from other port approaches
PortMiami describes a tunnel connecting the port with the MacArthur Causeway and I-395, with lane and cargo restrictions. For a port-related truck collision, record whether it happened inside the tunnel, at a portal, on the bridge or elsewhere. That distinction can help an attorney identify the relevant operator and incident records.
PortMiami: Tunnel access and safety ↗A separate national fatal-crash measure
Our NHTSA FARS extraction for the Miami, Florida city-code area records 63 fatal crashes, 65 fatalities and 3 fatal crashes involving a large truck in 2024. It uses the first annual release dated April 1, 2026. The city-code area is not the county or metropolitan area. State and local publications may differ in definitions and release dates; do not add their counts, replace one with the other or treat a difference as an error.
NHTSA: 2024 FARS national CSV archive ↗How to read a city count
The figures describe records assigned to the exact FARS city code, rather than every crash associated with a mailing address or surrounding county. Records with unknown or other location codes may not be assigned to this city. A zero in a truck subset means no matching records in this extraction, not proof that no truck accident occurred. Counts alone do not measure comparative driving risk.
NHTSA: FARS analytical user manual ↗Keep the report and your own documents together
Save the agency and report reference, original photos you already have, insurer correspondence and receipts. For a truck crash, record identifiers visible in existing images and ask a lawyer whether other records need preservation. Do not return to an unsafe scene or assume truck involvement establishes responsibility.
Questions about attorneys and financial options
Ask whether a lawyer handles the particular accident and jurisdiction, who would work on the matter and how fees and expenses are calculated. Ask about applicable deadlines directly. If you are waiting for a case to resolve, compare billing arrangements and funding alternatives using written costs. Neither the local crash count nor a lawyer’s advertised result predicts your recovery.