Autopilot and Self-Driving Car Crashes in Florida

Miami now has both kinds of automated cars on the road: ordinary vehicles running driver-assist systems like Tesla Autopilot, Ford BlueCruise or GM Super Cruise, and true driverless robotaxis, which Waymo began operating across about 60 square miles of Miami in January 2026. When one of them hurts someone, the first question is not who was behind the wheel. It is which kind of system was running.

Written by the Florida Injury Team Legal Content Team · Reviewed for accuracy by our network of licensed Florida attorneys · Learn about our editorial process

Level 2 and Level 4: the distinction the whole case turns on

Engineers sort automation into levels, and Florida law treats two of them very differently.

Level 2 is driver assistance. Autopilot, Full Self-Driving (Supervised), BlueCruise and Super Cruise all sit here. The system steers and controls speed, but the human is still legally the driver and is required to stay engaged the whole time. If a Level 2 car runs a red light, the person in the seat is the one who ran it.

Level 4 is a vehicle that drives itself within a defined area, with no human responsible. Waymo is here. For these, Florida Statute 316.85 says something unusual: when the automated driving system is engaged, the system itself is deemed the operator, whether or not a person is inside. That shifts the claim away from any passenger and toward the company running the fleet.

Most crashes in Miami today are the first kind. The marketing language makes people assume otherwise, and that assumption is where claims get lost.

What a Miami jury already decided

This is not theoretical here. In August 2025 a federal jury in Miami returned a verdict in Benavides v. Tesla, a case from a 2019 crash in Key Largo where a driver using Autopilot dropped his phone, bent down, and the car ran a stop sign at roughly 62 mph, killing Naibel Benavides Leon and seriously injuring Dillon Angulo.

The jury split the fault. It assigned most of it to the driver and about a third to Tesla, finding the Autopilot design defective, and added substantial punitive damages against the company. The total came to roughly $243 million. The trial judge refused to throw the verdict out in February 2026, and the case remains on appeal, so the final outcome is not settled.

What it established is narrower but important: a driver-assist manufacturer can be held partly responsible for how its system was designed and sold, alongside the driver. Before this, most of these cases ended quietly.

The car recorded everything, and you do not have it

This is the practical difference between an automated-vehicle claim and an ordinary one. A modern vehicle running driver assistance captures, in the seconds around a crash, whether the system was engaged, what the cameras saw, steering and braking inputs, speed, whether the system warned the driver, and whether the driver responded.

Federal rules require manufacturers to report crashes to NHTSA when a Level 2 system was in use within 30 seconds of impact and someone was killed, hospitalized, had an airbag deploy, or the vehicle had to be towed. So the data exists and the company knows about it.

The problem is custody. That data sits with the manufacturer and in a vehicle that is about to be repaired, sold or scrapped. A preservation letter has to go out to the manufacturer, the owner, the insurer and the salvage yard, and it has to go out in days. Disputes over exactly what data existed and when were central to the Tesla case.

Who can be held responsible

• The driver of the Level 2 vehicle, who remains legally the operator
• The vehicle manufacturer or software developer, for a defective design, inadequate driver monitoring, or marketing that oversold what the system could do
• The company operating a driverless fleet, when the automated system was the operator under Florida Statute 316.85
• The employer, if the vehicle was being used for work
• The owner of the vehicle, under Florida’s dangerous instrumentality doctrine
• A component supplier, for a defective sensor, camera or braking system

Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule still applies to you as the injured person: you recover only if you were 50% or less at fault, with your award reduced by your share.

What to do in the first days

1. Get medical care within 14 days. Florida’s PIP rule applies here like any other crash, and missing it costs you the coverage.
2. Write down what you saw. Was anyone in the driver’s seat? Were their hands on the wheel? Was there a screen lit up? Did the car brake at all? These observations matter more here than in a normal crash.
3. Photograph the vehicle, including any sensors, cameras or roof equipment, and get the full license plate and any fleet number.
4. Get the crash report and check whether the officer noted that an automated system was engaged. Many do not think to ask.
5. Do not let the vehicle be repaired before it is inspected, and say so in writing.
6. Do not give a recorded statement. These companies have legal teams that move within hours.

How the referral works

Florida Injury Team is not a law firm. When you call, we take the basic facts and connect you with an independent, licensed Florida law firm. These cases need a firm comfortable with product liability and electronic evidence, not only ordinary car crash work, and that is part of the match. The review is free, and the firm works on contingency: no fees unless it wins. Before you hire any lawyer, you can ask that lawyer for written information about their qualifications and experience.