Operation Slow Down: Why Fort Myers Drivers Need to Watch Their Speed in 2025

By David B. Pittman, Esq. — Founder, Pittman Law Firm, P.L. | Last updated May 12, 2026

Every summer when Operation Slow Down rolls through Lee County, our office gets calls from clients who want to know what a speeding citation actually does to their injury case. The fine is the smallest part of the answer. What matters in a personal injury claim is that Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule — rewritten in March 2023 — lets the defense use a speeding ticket to push your fault percentage toward the 50-percent line, and once they get you over it, your recovery is zero regardless of how serious your injuries are.

After thirty years of practice in Lee and Collier Counties, I can tell you that the speed of the vehicles in a crash drives the rest of the case more than any other single fact. Here is the plain-English version of what that means for anyone caught in a Fort Myers speeding-related wreck.

What Florida law actually says about speeding and injury claims

Operation Slow Down is a coordinated southeastern-state enforcement push that runs roughly a week each summer, and Fort Myers gets a heavy share of it. Florida Highway Patrol, Lee County Sheriff’s deputies, Fort Myers Police, and Cape Coral Police all add patrols along Cleveland Avenue, McGregor Boulevard, Colonial Boulevard, Summerlin Road, and the I-75 corridor near Alico Road. The 2024 statutory update to Florida’s speeding scheme — the “dangerous excessive speeding” and “super speeder” framework — gave officers more tools, and they use them.

On the civil side, three statutes do most of the work in a Fort Myers speeding-crash case:

• §768.81, Fla. Stat. — modified comparative negligence. Since the 2023 reform, if a jury assigns you more than 50 percent of the fault, you recover nothing. In plain English: a speeding citation against the injured driver is not just a traffic fine, it is a weapon the defense will use to push your fault percentage up toward that 50 percent line.
• §95.11(4)(a), Fla. Stat. — two-year statute of limitations. The 2023 reform cut the negligence filing window from four years to two. If your crash was on, say, July 18, 2025, you have until July 18, 2027 to file suit, and not a day longer.
• §627.736, Fla. Stat. — PIP. Florida is a no-fault state for the first $10,000 of medical and wage loss. You must see a doctor within 14 days of the crash or you forfeit PIP entirely. We see people miss this deadline because they “felt okay” for two weeks, and then the back pain showed up.

One more that matters in a speeding case: §627.727, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. A driver who is flying down Cleveland Avenue at 90 in a 45 is, statistically, also the kind of driver who is carrying the state-minimum policy with no bodily injury coverage at all. UM is often the only real source of recovery in those cases.

What these crash files actually look like in our office

Over the years, the speeding-related cases that come through our office fall into a handful of recurring shapes. None of them line up neatly with the press-release version of the campaign.

• The injured driver also got a ticket. Two cars, both speeding, one of them caused the impact. The defense argues 60/40 against our client and tries to zero out the case. This is the most common Operation Slow Down headache that lands on my desk.
• The “super speeder” rear-end. A driver clocked at 30+ over slams into a slowing line of traffic on I-75 near Alico Road. Liability is clear. The fight is over insurance limits, because the at-fault driver almost never has enough coverage to cover a serious injury.
• School-zone and construction-zone doubled-fine cases. The civil claim usually follows the criminal one. The doubled fine is the headline; the punitive-damages argument is what we actually use.
• Speeding plus distraction. Phone records pulled in discovery show the at-fault driver was texting while running 25 over the limit on Pine Island Road. The combination changes the case from ordinary negligence to something much closer to recklessness.
• The disputed citation. Our client gets a ticket they did not deserve at the scene because the responding officer made a quick judgment call. We work the citation, the crash report, and the body-cam footage together. The traffic court outcome can change the civil case posture overnight.

Where the investigation gets complicated

A speed-related crash sounds like it ought to be a straightforward liability case. It often is not. The complications stack up fast.

First, Florida’s crash report itself is a problem. Under §316.066, the long-form crash report is not admissible in the civil case for most purposes. The investigating officer’s narrative — the one that says “Vehicle 1 was traveling at a high rate of speed” — usually cannot come into evidence directly. We work around this by deposing the officer, by pulling the body cam, and by retaining a reconstruction engineer to do the math from the scene physics.

Second, speed is rarely measured. Unless the officer caught the driver on radar before the impact, the actual speed has to be reconstructed from crush damage, skid distance, debris field, and any electronic data the vehicle stored. Most modern cars have an event-data recorder that captures the last five seconds before a crash. Pulling it requires a quick preservation letter to the carrier or wrecking yard, because cars get scrapped fast in Lee County.

Third, the comparative-fault fight. Once the defense identifies any speeding by the injured driver — even mild speeding — they push hard on §768.81. I have watched a defense lawyer turn a 35-in-a-30 admission into a 49 percent fault argument. Sometimes a jury buys it. The mitigation is preparation and a clean reconstruction.

Fourth, the insurance reality. The driver going 90 in a 45 on Summerlin Road almost certainly does not have the policy limits to cover a broken back, a fused vertebra, and two years of physical therapy. We end up working through UM, through any household policy, through an employer if the driver was on the clock, and through every other coverage layer that might apply.

What to do if you are hit by a speeding driver in Fort Myers

The recommendations below are not a generic checklist. They are the steps I have watched make the difference between a strong case and a lost one.

• Get to a doctor within 14 days, even if you feel okay. PIP requires it. I have seen back and neck injuries show up at the three-week mark and tank a case because no medical contact was logged in the first two weeks.
• Photograph the vehicles before they leave the scene. The crush pattern on a high-speed impact tells a reconstruction engineer almost everything. Once the car is on a flatbed, that evidence starts disappearing.
• Ask the responding officer for the case number and the citation number, separately. They are two different documents. The citation has the speed reading on it. The crash report has the narrative. You want both.
• Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s carrier. They will call within 48 hours and sound friendly. The questions they ask are designed to lock you into a position on your own speed, your own attention, and your own injuries. Wait.
• Pull your own auto policy and look for the UM line. If you have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, that is often the policy that actually pays in a speeding-driver case. If you do not have it, add it tomorrow on your next vehicle, regardless of the outcome of the current claim.
• Preserve the vehicle. Tell your insurance carrier in writing that the car is not to be sold for salvage until your attorney has had a chance to pull the event-data recorder. A simple email is enough to put them on notice.
• Call us before you decide what to do with your own citation, if you got one. A guilty plea on a traffic ticket is admissible against you in the civil case. There are smarter ways to handle it.

Key Takeaways

• The biggest risk of a Fort Myers speeding citation is not the fine — it is how the defense uses it under §768.81 to push your fault percentage past the 50 percent recovery line.
• You have two years from the date of the crash to file suit under §95.11(4)(a). The old four-year window is gone.
• PIP under §627.736 gives you $10,000 in no-fault benefits, but only if you see a doctor within 14 days. Miss that window and you lose the entire benefit.
• A driver flagged for “dangerous excessive speeding” or as a “super speeder” gives the injured party a stronger position on liability, on insurance negotiations, and on punitive damages in the right cases.
• Most high-speed at-fault drivers carry the state minimum, which means uninsured motorist coverage under §627.727 is often the real source of recovery. Check your own policy now, not after a crash.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. If I get a speeding ticket during Operation Slow Down and I am not at fault for a crash, can the ticket still hurt my injury case?
Yes, and this catches a lot of people off guard. Under Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule, the defense will use your speeding citation to argue you share fault. If a jury puts you over 50 percent at fault, you recover nothing. The citation itself is not automatic proof, but it gives the other side an opening. Call us before you pay or contest it on your own.

Q2. I was hit by a driver who was clocked going 90 in a 45. Does that help my case?
It usually does. A driver flagged for dangerous excessive speeding gives us a stronger position on liability, on punitive damages in the right cases, and on insurance negotiations. We have seen carriers move quickly when the crash report and citation paint that picture clearly.

Q3. How long do I have to file a personal injury claim after a Fort Myers speeding crash?
Two years from the date of the crash. The 2023 reform under §95.11(4)(a) cut the negligence statute of limitations from four years down to two. Miss it and the claim is gone, no matter how strong the facts.

Q4. Does PIP cover my medical bills if a speeding driver hits me?
Florida PIP gives you up to $10,000 in no-fault medical and wage benefits under §627.736, regardless of who caused the crash. You have to see a doctor within 14 days or you lose it. PIP rarely covers the full bill in a serious-injury case, which is why uninsured motorist coverage and the at-fault driver’s liability policy matter so much.

Q5. The driver who hit me had only the state minimum coverage. What now?
This is the most common problem we see. Florida does not require drivers to carry bodily injury liability coverage. If your own auto policy includes uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage under §627.727, we tap that. If not, we look at every other policy in play, including household policies, employer policies if the at-fault driver was on the clock, and any commercial coverage.

If you were hurt in a speeding-related crash in Fort Myers

If a speeding driver hit you anywhere in Lee or Collier County — on I-75, on Daniels Parkway, on Cleveland Avenue, on Summerlin, or on a side street in a neighborhood — call our office. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we recover for you. We will walk through the crash report, the citation, your medical situation, and the coverage available before you commit to anything. Reach us at 239-992-8259 or through the contact form on this site.

About the Author

David B. Pittman, Esq. runs a thirty-year personal injury practice in Fort Myers and across Lee County as the founder of Pittman Law Firm, P.L. The firm’s Fort Myers presence handles a steady stream of serious-injury work along the Daniels Parkway, Six Mile Cypress, McGregor Boulevard, Cleveland Avenue, and Summerlin Road corridors, and along I-75 between Estero and Bell Tower. He represents injured clients across Lee and Collier Counties, with a particular focus on commercial-vehicle, complex-liability, and serious-injury cases.

His undergraduate degree is from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina; his JD is from the University of South Carolina School of Law. Martindale-Hubbell rates him AV-Preeminent, and he is a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.

David has held a Florida real estate broker license for twenty-five years, a credential that shapes how the firm reads the property side of premises cases. The firm handles personal injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, serving Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Coral, Estero, and Lehigh Acres, with offices at Windsor Place in Bonita Springs (main) and Fort Myers (satellite). Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation.

The information on this page is general information about Florida personal injury law and is not legal advice for any individual case. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship with Pittman Law Firm, P.L. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any future case. This page may be considered attorney advertising under the Florida Bar rules.