Types of Tampa Car Accidents

Car accidents can happen in many ways. They have diverse causes and can affect a variety of road users. Police officers, policymakers, and insurance companies use certain characteristics to classify car accidents into types. The various types of Tampa car accidents can tell you how they happened, what injuries resulted from them, and who bears liability.

If you get injured in a car crash in Tampa, FL, an attorney from Winters & Yonker Personal Injury Lawyers can investigate your collision. Your lawyer will use the car crash type to explain your claim to insurance adjusters and jurors as you pursue compensation.

Contact or call our car accident attorneys in Tampa at (813) 223-6200 today to schedule a free initial consultation to learn more. You can visit our FAQ page for further information.

Table of Contents

Winters & Yonker Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help After Any Type of Car Accident in Tampa, FL

Since 2001, Winters & Yonker Personal Injury Lawyers has represented victims of traumatic incidents in Tampa, Florida, against those who caused their injuries.

Our Tampa car accident lawyers have reputations as “The Aggressive Attorneys” who stand up for injured clients to pursue fair compensation.

After you suffer an injury, our lawyers will provide:

Legal advice about your rights so you can decide how to proceed with your case
A personalized legal strategy to negotiate a settlement with the at-fault party’s insurer
A legal team with over 119 years of experience to take your case to court if necessary

Car accidents can injure your body and devastate your finances. Contact Winters & Yonker Personal Injury Lawyers for a free consultation to discuss your injuries and how we can help you pursue financial compensation for their effects.

How Dangerous Are Tampa’s Roads?

Over 20,985 people were involved in traffic crashes in Tampa in 2022, according to the Florida Traffic Safety Dashboard. These accidents caused 78 fatalities.

There are two ways of quantifying whether these numbers are unusually high or simply a consequence of the city’s large population. First, you can look at Tampa’s share of Florida’s population. Tampa has over 398,000 of Florida’s 22.2 million residents. This translates to roughly 1.8% of the state’s population.

The entire state had 3,552 car crash fatalities in 2022. Based on its share of Florida’s population, Tampa should have had about 64 traffic deaths that year. But it actually had 78 fatalities — over 22% more traffic deaths than it should have had.

You can also look at crash fatality rates. Using the numbers above, Tampa had 19.6 traffic deaths per 100,000 residents. Florida’s crash fatality rate was 16.0 traffic deaths per 100,000 residents. Once again, Tampa’s roads were over 22% deadlier than roads elsewhere in the state.

Classifying Car Accidents in Tampa, FL

You can classify car accidents using several different characteristics. You can look at the type of road users involved in the crash. For example, pedestrian accidents and bicycle collisions usually have different causes than car crashes.

You can also classify crashes by the nature of the collision. All rear-end collisions have similar fact patterns and produce similar crash injuries. More importantly, these causes and effects differ from those of other accidents such as head-on crashes, lane change crashes, left-turn accidents, multi-vehicle accidents, parking lot accidents, rollover accidents, and red and yellow light accidents, among others

Finally, you can look at the severity of the crash. This characteristic will tell you what types of compensation you can get. For example, the damages when families lose a loved one in a fatal crash will differ from the damages a crash victim will suffer after a catastrophic injury.

Some types of Tampa car accidents include:

Fatal Car Collisions

Tampa police officers classify injury crashes by the most severe injury suffered by anyone involved in the crash. The injury levels used to classify crashes in Florida follow the KABCO scale.

This scale includes the following:

K means at least one fatality
A means at least one incapacitating injury that required an ambulance
B means a visible injury that did not require an ambulance
C means no visible wound but complaints of pain, dizziness, or other symptoms
O means no injuries or complaints of injury

After a fatal collision, you may be entitled to file a wrongful death claim against the at-fault driver. It’s best to seek help from an experienced Tampa personal injury lawyer.

Rear-End Crashes

Rear-end crashes are the most common crashes in the U.S. About 42% of collisions involve a rear-end crash.

These crashes typically happen due to:

These crashes cause the vehicle occupants to whip forward and backward, producing whiplash and concussions. In most cases, the driver of the rear vehicle bears the liability for these injuries for their failure to leave enough space.

Intersection Accidents

Intersection crashes have a high likelihood of causing injuries or deaths. These collisions often happen when one driver fails to yield the right of way to another driver by disobeying a traffic signal or going out of turn at an intersection. The driver who failed to yield will bear the liability for the accident.

Schedule a Free Consultation With Our Experienced Tampa Car Accident Lawyers

Car crash injuries can disable you from working or caring for your needs. Contact Winters & Yonker Personal Injury Lawyers to discuss your collision and the compensation you can seek under Florida law, we will answer all your questions.

We Handle all car accident claims, including: