Florida's Personal Injury Protection system provides no-fault benefits for covered medical expenses and lost income under the statutory PIP priority rules. In a negligence claim against the at-fault driver, you cannot recover damages for losses that PIP benefits have paid or are legally payable, but you may pursue otherwise recoverable economic damages that fall outside those PIP benefits. To recover pain and suffering, your injuries must also meet Florida's tort threshold, which requires permanent injury, significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, or death. Proving the other driver was inattentive and that this inattention caused the crash is what makes either type of claim work.

Distraction shows up in a meaningful share of serious crashes nationwide. NHTSA counted 3,208 people killed and roughly 315,167 injured in crashes involving distracted drivers in 2024, about 8 percent of all traffic deaths that year. Those numbers likely understate the problem, since a driver who was looking at a phone rarely volunteers that fact to the investigating officer. The scale of the issue is part of why distracted driving has become such a persistent danger on roads across the country.

For drivers hurt on Florida highways and neighborhood streets, the practical question is what the law allows and what it takes to prove. Florida personal injury claims built on distraction turn less on outrage and more on documentation. Knowing which records matter and how quickly they disappear often decides the outcome.

What Counts as Distracted Driving in Florida?

Distraction covers anything that pulls a driver's hands off the wheel, eyes off the road, or attention away from driving. That includes visual, manual, and cognitive distraction, and the last one is the hardest to prove because it leaves no physical trace.

Florida addresses the most common form directly. Under the Florida Ban on Texting While Driving Law, a driver may not manually type or enter multiple letters, numbers, or symbols into a wireless device or send or read data on it for nonvoice interpersonal communication, such as texting, emailing, or instant messaging. Officers may stop a vehicle for this alone. A separate provision restricts use of a wireless communications device in a handheld manner while operating a moving motor vehicle in a designated school crossing, school zone, or qualifying work zone where construction personnel are present or operating equipment. The statute contains specific exceptions, including certain emergency communications and permitted hands-free uses.

Plenty of distracted driving falls outside those statutes and still supports a negligence claim. Eating, reaching for an object, adjusting climate controls, turning to manage children in the back seat, or simply being lost in thought can each break a driver's attention long enough to cause a collision. Recognizing the signs of a distracted driver in the moments before impact gives you something concrete to describe later. No traffic citation is required for a distraction claim to succeed.

How Do You Prove a Driver Was Distracted?

A distraction case is a negligence case. You must show the driver owed you a duty of care, breached it, caused the collision, and caused you actual harm. Distraction is the evidence of breach, not a separate legal theory.

The practical difficulty is that distraction is invisible after the fact. A driver who ran a red light while scrolling looks identical, in the wreckage, to a driver who simply misjudged the light. That gap is why proving texting while driving caused a crash usually depends on records the other side controls, obtained through formal legal process rather than a polite request.

Timing works against you. Surveillance footage from nearby businesses is often overwritten within days. Carriers purge detailed usage data on their own schedules. Vehicle event data recorders can be lost when a car is repaired or salvaged. Preservation letters and early subpoenas exist precisely because waiting costs cases.

What Evidence Shows Phone Use or Inattention?

Building the record usually means assembling several imperfect sources into one picture. No single item proves distraction on its own.

1. Phone and carrier records. Whether cell phone records can prove distracted driving after a collision depends on what the records actually capture and how precisely their timestamps align with the crash. Roadside access is limited: an officer who stops a driver for texting must advise the driver of the right to refuse a device search and cannot search the phone without a warrant.
2. The crash report. The crash report can guide the investigation and matter in insurance negotiations, but Florida law limits what can later be admitted at trial. A crash report made by a person involved in the crash and statements that person gives law enforcement for the purpose of completing the statutory crash report generally may not be used as evidence at trial. The rule does not categorically exclude an investigating officer's independent observations or other admissible tangible evidence from the crash scene.
3. Independent witnesses. Bystanders, other motorists, and pedestrians may have seen the driver looking down or holding a device. The report privilege reaches statements by people involved in the crash, so an uninvolved witness who saw what happened is often the cleanest source of testimony.
4. Video. Dashcams, traffic cameras, doorbell cameras, and business security systems sometimes capture the interior of the vehicle or the driving behavior leading up to impact.
5. Reconstruction and vehicle data. An absence of skid marks or braking input suggests the driver never perceived the hazard. Reconstruction experts and downloaded vehicle data can turn that into testimony.

Florida's No-Fault Rules Shape What You Can Recover

Florida requires most registered vehicles to carry at least $10,000 in personal injury protection coverage plus property damage liability. PIP pays 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost income, both drawn from that same limit.

Two rules quietly decide how much of that $10,000 you ever see. You must receive initial medical services within 14 days of the crash, or PIP medical benefits are lost entirely. And the full $10,000 is available only if a qualified provider determines you had an emergency medical condition (EMC). Without that determination, medical benefits stop at $2,500.

From there, two separate questions govern a claim against the distracted driver, and conflating them is a common mistake in car accident injury claims:

• Economic damages. Subject to proof of fault, causation, and damages, an injured person may pursue otherwise recoverable economic losses that are not paid or payable as PIP benefits, including qualifying unpaid medical expenses, lost income, future medical expenses, and lost earning capacity. The tort threshold in section 627.737(2) applies to pain, suffering, mental anguish, and inconvenience, not to recovery of otherwise recoverable economic damages outside the PIP tort exemption.
• Non-economic damages. Pain, suffering, mental anguish, and inconvenience are available only if your injuries satisfy the statutory threshold: 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.
• Property damage. Vehicle repair or replacement is handled separately from bodily injury and is not affected by the threshold at all.

Whether an injury is permanent is a medical opinion, and it is frequently contested. Insurers routinely retain physicians who conclude the opposite. The statute also lets a defendant force the question early: on a one-time basis before trial, the court can review the evidence and dismiss the claim without prejudice if the plaintiff cannot show they will meet the threshold. That makes the treating physician's documentation, built in the weeks after the crash, one of the most consequential parts of the file.

Comparative Fault and the Two-Year Filing Deadline

Florida applies modified comparative negligence. If you share responsibility, your award drops by your percentage of fault, so a $100,000 verdict reduced by 20 percent fault pays $80,000. Above that, the rule turns absolute: a party found more than 50 percent at fault for their own harm recovers nothing.

That cliff is why adjusters push fault onto injured drivers. Arguments that you were speeding slightly, following too closely, or failed to take evasive action are attempts to move you past the 50 percent line, where the claim disappears entirely.

The filing window is short. Under Florida's limitations statute, a negligence action must be commenced within two years. That period was cut from four, and the older four-year figure still applies to claims that accrued before the change took effect, which can catch out anyone relying on a stale summary. If the applicable limitations period expires before the action is commenced, the negligence claim may be time-barred unless a statutory tolling rule or another legally applicable exception changes the deadline.

Steps that protect a claim in the days after a crash:

1. Call law enforcement and request that a report be generated.
2. Obtain medical care immediately, and well inside the 14-day PIP window.
3. Photograph vehicle positions, damage, debris, skid marks, road conditions, and visible injuries.
4. Collect names and phone numbers for every witness before they leave.
5. Stick to facts with everyone at the scene and avoid apologizing.
6. Contact an attorney early, while footage and records still exist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does PIP Cover a Distracted Driving Accident?

Yes. PIP is the first source of payment for medical bills and lost wages after a Florida crash, regardless of who caused it. It pays 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost income up to the policy limit. You must receive initial care within 14 days, and the full $10,000 medical benefit requires a provider to determine you had an emergency medical condition. Otherwise, medical benefits cap at $2,500.

Can I Sue if the Driver Was Distracted by Something Apart From a Phone?

Yes. Any activity that diverts a driver's attention can amount to negligence. Eating, grooming, reaching for an object, managing passengers, or being lost in thought can all support a claim if the distraction caused the crash. No statute needs to prohibit the specific behavior. What matters is whether a reasonably careful driver would have kept their attention on the road and whether the failure to do so caused your injuries.

Do I Have To Meet the Tort Threshold To Sue at All?

No, and this requirement is widely misunderstood. The threshold governs pain and suffering and other non-economic damages. Economic losses that exceed your PIP benefits, including unpaid medical costs, lost wages, future care, and lost earning capacity, can be pursued against the at-fault driver without meeting it. The threshold is very important to the value of a case, but it does not prevent you from pursuing economic damages.

How Long Do I Have To File a Lawsuit in Florida?

In Florida, you have two years from the date of the crash to file a negligence claim. Florida shortened the deadline from four years in 2023, and the older figure still circulates widely, which catches people out. Filing after the deadline generally ends the case regardless of its merits. Florida law recognizes limited circumstances that can affect a filing deadline. For example, section 95.051 provides specified tolling rules, including a limited rule for a minor when no suitable parent, guardian, or guardian ad litem exists, and claims against the state or its agencies or subdivisions can be subject to separate notice and sovereign-immunity requirements. The applicable deadline should therefore be determined based on the particular facts and the defendant involved.

Call Brandon J. Broderick For Legal Help

A distracted driving case is won or lost on records that vanish quickly. Video gets overwritten. Carrier data gets purged. Vehicles get repaired before anyone downloads what they recorded.

Our team investigates the crash, sends preservation demands before evidence disappears, pursues the phone and vehicle records that show what the other driver was actually doing, and handles the insurance communications while you focus on recovery. We also develop the medical evidence relevant to whether your injuries satisfy Florida's tort threshold, because meeting that threshold determines whether noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering are recoverable.

If an inattentive driver injured you on Florida roads, reach out today for a free legal consultation.