The first ten minutes · Fla. Stat. 316.062
What Information to Exchange After a Car Accident in Florida
Florida law requires you to hand over three things at a crash scene. The claim you file weeks later depends on roughly a dozen more, and almost all of them are only available while you are still standing there. This is the gap that decides whether a straightforward claim stays straightforward: the legal minimum takes thirty seconds, and the useful version takes about five minutes.
- 3items the statute requires: name, address, registration
- $500damage threshold that requires notifying police
- Daysbefore nearby camera footage is overwritten
- 14 daysthe medical deadline that starts the moment it happens
Independent informational site. Not a law firm, not legal advice.
What Florida actually requires
Fla. Stat. 316.062 requires a driver involved in a crash to give their name, their address, and the registration number of the vehicle, and to exhibit their driver license on request, to the other driver, to any person injured, and to any investigating officer.
The same section imposes a duty to render reasonable assistance to anyone injured, including arranging transport for medical treatment where it is apparent that treatment is necessary. Failing to comply with 316.062 is a noncriminal traffic infraction punishable as a nonmoving violation.
Leaving a scene involving injury or death is an entirely different matter and is a serious criminal offense in Florida, not a traffic infraction. Whatever else is true about a crash, staying is not optional.
When you must call police
Fla. Stat. 316.065 requires the driver of a vehicle involved in a crash resulting in injury, death, or apparent property damage of at least $500 to immediately give notice by the quickest available means to local police, the sheriff, or the Florida Highway Patrol. Failing to report is a noncriminal traffic infraction.
Five hundred dollars is a very low threshold in practice. A bumper cover and a sensor exceed it comfortably, which means the honest answer for most collisions involving contact between two vehicles is that the report requirement applies. Assessing the damage as under $500 from the roadside is a judgment people are consistently wrong about.
There is also a claims reason that has nothing to do with the statute. A crash with no report of any kind becomes one person's word against another's, and the party who benefits from that is whichever one later decides to change their account. The report is the neutral record that stops the story from moving.
What to collect beyond the minimum
| What | Why it matters later |
|---|---|
| Driver license, photographed | Correct legal name and license number; misheard names are a routine report error |
| Insurance card, photographed | Carrier and policy number; verbal carrier names get transcribed wrong |
| License plate, photographed on the car | Ties the plate to the actual vehicle, not to what someone wrote down |
| Whether the driver owns the vehicle | A different registered owner can mean an additional insurance policy |
| Witness names and phone numbers | The single most perishable item at any scene |
| Responding officer name and report number | How you retrieve the report and who to contact about errors |
| Wide scene photos and close damage photos | Position, signals, skid marks, debris, sight lines, weather |
| Nearby businesses with cameras | Footage is typically overwritten within days |
Witnesses are the item worth pressing on. An officer records the drivers and often nobody else, and an independent witness is the only evidence that is neither party's account. That person is willing to help for about five minutes and then leaves permanently. A phone number typed into your phone at the scene is worth more to a disputed claim than almost anything else you can do that day.
Photograph more than the damage. The value of scene photos is the context: where the vehicles came to rest, what the traffic control looked like from each approach, whether a sign was obscured, what the road surface was doing. Damage photos prove force. Context photos prove fault, and fault is what the 50% bar now turns on completely.
What not to do at the scene
Do not agree to handle it privately. Cash-at-the-scene arrangements fall apart as soon as hidden damage or delayed injury surfaces, and by then there is no report, no photographs, no exchanged information, and no recourse. The other driver's willingness to pay evaporates with the same speed the evidence did.
Do not apologize or assign blame. Fault in Florida is apportioned as a percentage, and a claimant more than 50% at fault recovers nothing. Roadside statements get repeated to adjusters and recorded in the report narrative.
Do not assess your own injuries out loud. Adrenaline suppresses pain for hours, and saying you are fine produces a low injury severity code on the report that survives long after the MRI contradicts it. Say you are not sure and will be evaluated.
And do not treat a drivable car as evidence that nobody is hurt. Low-speed collisions produce genuine spinal injuries routinely, and the medical decision is where Florida's 14-day PIP deadline starts running whether or not you feel anything yet.
Exchanging information questions
What information do you legally have to exchange after a car accident in Florida?
Under Fla. Stat. 316.062, your name, your address, and the vehicle's registration number, plus exhibiting your driver license on request, given to the other driver, anyone injured, and any investigating officer. The statute also requires rendering reasonable assistance to anyone injured. Everything else people typically exchange is prudent rather than required.
Can we just exchange information and not call the police?
Only if there is no injury and apparent damage is under $500, which is a lower bar than most people assume. Fla. Stat. 316.065 requires immediate notice to law enforcement for crashes involving injury, death, or apparent damage of at least $500. Beyond the statute, a crash with no report becomes a dispute with no neutral record.
What if the other driver refuses to give me their information?
Call law enforcement and stay at the scene. Refusing to provide the required information is itself a violation of Fla. Stat. 316.062, and an officer can obtain it. Photograph the license plate and the vehicle in the meantime. If the driver leaves the scene, that is a far more serious matter and the plate photograph becomes the most important thing you have.
Do I need to give the other driver my phone number?
The statute requires name, address, and registration number, not a phone number. Many people give one anyway and it is generally harmless, though claim communications are better handled between insurers than between drivers. What matters more is that both sets of insurance information were exchanged accurately and that a report exists.
What if the crash happened in a parking lot?
Private property crashes are still crashes for insurance purposes, and law enforcement sometimes declines to respond to them. Where no officer responds, exchange the same information, photograph everything including the surrounding lot and any store cameras, and file a report with the department yourself. Parking lot collisions are frequently disputed precisely because so many produce no official record.
How do I find out if a business nearby had a camera?
Look around while you are still there and note which storefronts, gas stations, or homes face the intersection, then ask that day or the next. Most systems overwrite within days to a couple of weeks, so this is the item with the shortest window of anything on the list. A polite request in person, early, works far better than a formal one a month later.
Primary sources: Fla. Stat. 316.062 (duty to give name, address, and vehicle registration number, exhibit a driver license on request, and render reasonable assistance; noncriminal traffic infraction for violations), Fla. Stat. 316.065 (immediate notice to law enforcement for crashes involving injury, death, or apparent property damage of at least $500), Fla. Stat. 316.027 (leaving the scene of a crash involving injury or death), Fla. Stat. 316.066 (crash reports), Fla. Stat. 627.736 (the 14-day PIP care requirement). Statute text at Online Sunshine. General information, not legal advice. Last reviewed August 2, 2026.