Fort Myers Car Accident Lawyer — Felicetti Law Firm
Southwest Florida gains several hundred thousand seasonal residents and visitors every winter, most of them arriving by car or collecting one at the airport. Fort Myers roads that function tolerably in August behave very differently in February, and the crash pattern follows.
State Road 82: a road the sheriff’s office talks about by name
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office traffic unit has said its officers respond to one or two fatal crashes a month on State Road 82 between I-75 and Immokalee Road, attributing it to traffic volume, speed, and left turns made across three lanes and a wide median. FDOT installed temporary curbing at seven intersections along it in 2024 to stop side-street left turns outright, and signalized Sunshine Boulevard.
Twenty-two million dollars on two and a half miles of Cleveland Avenue
Cleveland Avenue (US 41) between Winkler Avenue and SR 82 received a dedicated $22 million FDOT pedestrian safety and resurfacing project, completed at the end of 2023. It raised the median and added five mid-block pedestrian hybrid beacon crossings along with signal and lighting work. A state agency spending that much on pedestrian safety across two and a half urban miles is itself the clearest evidence of what was happening there.
The Cape Coral–Fort Myers metro ranks 27th most dangerous in the United States for pedestrians, with 121 pedestrian deaths between 2020 and 2024. Nine of the country’s 27 worst metros for pedestrians are in Florida.
A Level II trauma center, and why the distinction matters
The trauma center at Gulf Coast Medical Center is Level II, not Level I — Lee Health describes it as the only trauma center between Sarasota and Miami. A Level II center provides definitive trauma care; the practical difference tends to show up in the most complex cases, some of which are transferred onward. For your claim, the significance is simply that the treatment chain may involve more than one hospital, and every link in it has to be collected.
Where a Lee County claim is heard
Fort Myers sits in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit, which also covers Charlotte, Collier, Glades and Hendry counties. Civil cases are heard at the Lee County Justice Center complex in downtown Fort Myers, on Monroe Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Two years — and why seasonal visitors lose claims
Florida cut the filing deadline for negligence claims from four years to two in March 2023. That change is hardest on exactly the people Southwest Florida fills up with each winter: someone hurt here in February, treated here, then home in Ohio by April, who assumes there is time and rings a lawyer eighteen months later. There may still be time. There often is not.
Florida also moved to modified comparative negligence. Share the blame and your damages drop by your percentage; carry more than half of it and you recover nothing. Medical malpractice was left under the older, more forgiving rule.
Out-of-state drivers and out-of-state insurers
Southwest Florida International handled more than 11.1 million passengers in 2025. A large share of the drivers on Daniels Parkway and I-75 in season are in rental cars, on unfamiliar roads, insured somewhere else. That complicates coverage questions and it makes early identification of every applicable policy — the driver’s, the rental company’s, and your own uninsured motorist cover — more important than in an ordinary local collision.
Speak to the Felicetti Law Firm
Ring us from wherever you are, including after you have gone home for the season. The review is free and we only take a fee out of a recovery. Call (800) 333-1988 at any hour, or contact us online. Se habla español.
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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and fault rules have exceptions; only a review of your own facts can tell you which apply. Cases are handled by attorneys licensed in the local jurisdiction.