DUI Accident Lawyers in Miami Lakes, Florida

Miami Lakes was built as a planned community, and it shows. Residential streets loop and curve through the neighborhoods around Main Street, then funnel drivers onto Miami Lakeway or Ludlam Road before dumping them onto the Palmetto Expressway (SR 826). That transition point, from a quiet 30 mph curvilinear street to a fast-moving expressway on ramp, is where a lot of the serious crashes we hear about happen.

A driver leaving one of the bars or restaurants around Main Street Miami Lakes after last call has to navigate several turns and stop signs before reaching the expressway. Impairment shows up in exactly those conditions: misjudging a curve, missing a stop sign hidden by landscaping, drifting across the center line on a two-lane residential street. We also see impaired driving crashes on Miami Lakes Drive and NW 154th Street, both of which carry commuter and local traffic at higher speeds than the neighborhood roads around them.

Because the community was designed around cul-de-sacs and looping streets rather than a grid, sightlines are different from what you’d find in an older Miami neighborhood. A driver who has been drinking is less able to adjust for a curve that seems to reveal itself late, or for cross traffic entering from a side street that isn’t visible until the last moment. When that failure to adjust turns into a collision, the resulting injuries are often more severe because impaired drivers frequently don’t brake before impact.

These crashes also tend to happen close to home, literally, for Miami Lakes residents. A pedestrian walking a dog on a curved residential street, a cyclist heading toward the Miami Lakes Optimist Park trails, or a family in a car pulling out of a driveway near Main Street can all be affected by a driver who never should have been behind the wheel that night.