Fort Lauderdale truck accident claims

Port Everglades is, in its own words, South Florida’s main seaport for receiving petroleum products (opens in a new tab). Its preliminary figures for fiscal 2025 show about 27 million tons of cargo, roughly two thirds of it petroleum (opens in a new tab).

The port says it supplies energy products to 12 Florida counties and five international airports (opens in a new tab). It publishes no count of the tanker trucks that carry them.

The fuel terminals are private. The port’s energy page says 17 petroleum terminal and pipeline companies operate within its jurisdiction, on private property (opens in a new tab). So a tanker loaded there was loaded by an oil company or a carrier.

Hazardous cargo is where Florida makes the fewest allowances for in-state trucks. Every commercial vehicle carrying hazardous materials on a public road is subject to the federal hazardous materials regulations, whether in interstate or intrastate commerce (opens in a new tab), and so is the company that offers the cargo for transport.

The longer driving hours Florida allows in-state drivers come with the same exception. They apply only to a driver who is not transporting hazardous materials in amounts that require placards (opens in a new tab).

Insurance is higher as well. The federal schedule sets a minimum of $1,000,000 for carriers of oil and many other hazardous materials, and $5,000,000 for certain bulk hazardous cargo (opens in a new tab), in place of the lower figure for ordinary freight. Which figure applies depends on the material and on whether the haul is interstate.

Florida’s limits on what a vehicle’s owner owes also fall away. They do not apply when a commercial vehicle is carrying placarded hazardous materials at the time (opens in a new tab), with narrow exceptions written into the statute.

The general lanes. Trucks with three or more axles are not allowed in the 95 Express lanes (opens in a new tab), and the state says only two-axle vehicles may use the 595 Express lanes (opens in a new tab). Tractor-trailers and tankers share the regular lanes with everyone else.

The junction of I-95 and I-595 has been under construction for years. The transportation department’s page for the 95 Express project between Hollywood Boulevard and Broward Boulevard (opens in a new tab) gives a start date of January 2019 and a completion date of winter 2027.

In January 2026 the department began adding curve-warning and wet-road warning systems to the ramp from northbound I-95 to I-595 (opens in a new tab).

Florida’s highway safety department counted 4,551 crashes involving commercial motor vehicles in Broward County in 2024, with 14 deaths (opens in a new tab). That count includes buses and smaller commercial vehicles.

Broward County is, by itself, Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit (opens in a new tab). The clerk’s Circuit Civil Division is in the Central Courthouse, 201 S.E. 6th Street (opens in a new tab).

The port itself is public. Port Everglades is a department of Broward County government (opens in a new tab), so a claim involving a port vehicle is a claim against the county, and it must first be presented in writing within 3 years, or 2 in a wrongful death case (opens in a new tab).

A carrier from another state may be able to move a case to federal court. Broward County is in the Southern District of Florida, and federal law lists Fort Lauderdale among the places where that court is held (opens in a new tab).