US-19 from Tarpon Springs to St. Petersburg has been ranked among the deadliest roads in Florida, and by some counts in the country, for a decade: long gaps between signals, six lanes of plaza driveways, pedestrians crossing half a mile from the nearest crosswalk, and traffic that treats 55 as a suggestion. Kemp Law Group’s office sits a few minutes off it in Trinity, and more of our cases begin on US-19 than on any other road. What you do in the first three days decides most of them.
At the scene and the same day
Call 911 even when the crash looks minor. The Florida Highway Patrol or city police report is the first document every insurer asks for, and a crash with no report is a crash the other driver can later describe any way they like. While you wait, photograph every vehicle, every license plate, the damage, the signal and the lane you were in, and get the names and phone numbers of witnesses before they drive off; on US-19 they are gone in two minutes. Do not apologize, do not discuss fault, and do not give a recorded statement to anyone’s insurance company that day.
Then do the thing most people skip: see a doctor the same day or the next. Florida’s no-fault system pays your first $10,000 of medical care only if you are seen within 14 days of the crash, and an insurer reads any gap between the crash and the first visit as proof you were not hurt. An urgent care visit on day one is worth more to your claim than a specialist on day twenty.
Days one to three: the evidence that disappears
The plazas, gas stations and restaurants along US-19 have cameras pointed at their driveways and at the road, and most of them overwrite the footage within days. The 911 audio and the officers’ body-camera and dash-camera video have their own retention clocks. The other car’s event data recorder, which stores its speed and braking in the seconds before impact, is erased the moment the car is repaired or scrapped. None of this waits for the insurance company to make up its mind.
That is why our preservation letters go out the week a client calls: to the businesses at the intersection, to the agency that responded, and to the insurer and body shop holding the other vehicle. Calling a lawyer on day two beats calling on day twenty for no reason more complicated than that.
The crash report
Reports are available to the people involved through FLHSMV’s Florida Crash Portal, usually within a few days, and we obtain them for every client. Read yours carefully. Check the narrative and the diagram against what happened, check whether a citation was issued, check that your injuries are recorded (people who said “I’m fine” at the scene find the box marked “no injury”), and check the other driver’s insurance information. If that line is blank or the policy turns out to be lapsed, the case is not over; it moves to your own uninsured motorist coverage and to the policies of relatives in your household, which is the subject of our article on being hit by a driver with no insurance.
The calls you will get
Your own insurer: report the crash, give the basic facts, and decline the recorded statement until you have talked to a lawyer; your policy requires cooperation, not a sworn interview on day two. The other driver’s insurer: take the adjuster’s name and the claim number and say nothing else, politely; everything you tell them is used to reduce what they pay, and since 2023 a finding that you were 51 percent at fault ends the case entirely. And the body shops, clinics and “accident helplines” that call out of nowhere: some of them work from the crash report itself, and the treatment they steer you into is chosen for their benefit, not yours.
Where US-19 cases cluster
Our files from this road concentrate at a handful of places: Tarpon Springs at Alternate 19 and the Anclote bridge; Holiday between Darlington Road and Moog Road, where the pedestrian deaths are; Port Richey at Ridge Road and the Gulf View Square driveways; Hudson at Hudson Avenue and the hospital district; Palm Harbor at Nebraska Avenue and Alderman Road; Clearwater at Gulf to Bay and the overpass ramps; and Pinellas Park at Park Boulevard and the frontage roads. The crash report tells us which agency responded and which court the case belongs to: the Sixth Judicial Circuit in New Port Richey for Pasco County and in Clearwater or St. Petersburg for Pinellas County.
Pedestrian cases on US-19 deserve their own word. If you were hit on foot, your own household’s PIP and uninsured motorist coverage apply even though you were not in a car, the businesses’ cameras matter more than in any other kind of case, and the insurer’s first question, why you were crossing there, is not a defense: the law gives pedestrians the same right to recover as anyone else.
What a lawyer does in those 72 hours that you cannot
Send the preservation letters while the footage still exists. Search every policy in the household for coverage you did not know you had. Set up the first medical appointments so treatment starts on day one and never shows a gap. And make the one phone call that makes every insurer stop calling you, because once a claim is represented, the adjusters’ questions come to us. From that point the case is built the way it will be judged: as if a Pasco or Pinellas jury will see it.
Hurt on US-19? Talk to us today
Call or text 727-847-4878 or contact us online for a free consultation, 24 hours a day. Our office is at 11567 Trinity Boulevard, minutes from US-19, and we come to you at home or in the hospital when the injury is serious. You owe no fees and no costs unless we win. See also the Florida car accident and pedestrian accident pages.
The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon advertisements. This article is general information about Florida law as of its publication date and is not legal advice about any particular case.
