Fatal car crashes in Largo, FL: deadliest roads, 2020-2024

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 66 fatal crashes inside Largo, in which 69 people died. The roads with the most were US-19 (street name not recorded) with 14 fatal crashes, State Route 686 (street name not recorded) with 7 and State Route 688 (street name not recorded) with 7.

Filing deadline, fault rule, insurance and the court for a crash in Largo: Largo, FL injury guide.

The figures here come from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the federal record of every fatal crash on a public road in the United States. For 2020 through 2024, FARS places 66 fatal crashes in Largo, and those crashes killed 69 people. The years 2020 to 2023 come from NHTSA's Final Files. The 2024 records come from the Annual Report File, the agency's first release for that year, and may still be revised.

Largo's yearly count went up and down in turn: 13 fatal crashes in 2020, 18 in 2021, 11 in 2022, 18 again in 2023 and 6 in 2024, the fewest of the five years. Deaths ran 13, 20, 11, 18 and 7. Only 2021 and 2024 had more deaths than crashes, by 2 and by 1, which accounts for the whole gap between the city's 66 crashes and 69 deaths. With counts this small, one year's drop says little about a trend.

Pinellas County recorded 573 fatal crashes and 609 deaths over the same five years, so Largo's share is 12 percent of the county's fatal crashes and 11 percent of its deaths. Florida as a whole recorded 15,959 crashes and 17,131 deaths. Largo's 69 deaths rank 21st among the Florida places in our guides, a list headed by Jacksonville with 816, Miami with 333 and Tampa with 317.

US-19 (street name not recorded) heads Largo's table with 14 fatal crashes and 14 deaths, the latest in 2023, or 21 percent of the city's fatal crashes. The next two rows, State Route 686 (street name not recorded) and State Route 688 (street name not recorded), had 7 crashes each, exactly half as many; the latest was in 2024 on the first and in 2022 on the second. Ulmerton Rd (State Route 688) follows with 6, the latest in 2024, and Starkey Rd has 5, the latest in 2023.

Only two rows have more deaths than crashes: Bay Dr (State Route 686), where 4 fatal crashes killed 6 people, the latest in 2024, and Keene Rd, where 2 killed 3, the latest in 2023. State Route 693 had 3 crashes, the latest in 2021, and Indian Rocks Rd and Missouri Ave (US-19) had 2 each, both with one in 2024. The ten rows hold 52 of the 66 fatal crashes, 79 percent, and 55 of the 69 deaths. The counts show where people died, not who was at fault or how risky a road is.

Evening is when Largo's fatal crashes concentrate: 34 of the 66, or 52 percent, happened between 6 p.m. and midnight, against 14 from noon to 6 p.m. and 9 in each of the other two six-hour blocks. Saturday had the most, 16, and Sunday 12; Monday, Tuesday and Friday had 9 apiece, Thursday 7 and Wednesday just 4. The weather was clear for 57 crashes, cloudy for 6 and rainy for 2, and 1 happened in fog, smog or smoke.

Thirty-eight crashes, 58 percent, happened in darkness, 30 of them on lighted roads and 8 on unlit ones; daylight accounted for 25, dusk for 2 and dawn for 1. With most night crashes under some lighting, the questions in a night claim go beyond darkness to what the driver could have seen and how fast the car was moving. Forty-three crashes were coded non-junction, away from any intersection, driveway or ramp, and 20 were at or related to an intersection.

How a crash began shapes the fault questions. FARS calls the first event that caused injury or damage the first harmful event, and in 24 Largo crashes it was a vehicle striking a pedestrian, more than the 20 that began with a collision between motor vehicles in transport, meaning moving or stopped in the roadway. A cyclist was struck first in 10 and a person on a personal conveyance in 2, and rollovers and curbs began 4 each. The 20 collisions included 9 angle crashes, 5 rear-end and 4 head-on.

The larger share of Largo's dead were outside any vehicle. Pedestrians were 24 of the 69 people killed and bicyclists 9, and with 1 other cyclist and 2 people on personal conveyances, FARS's category for devices such as wheelchairs and skateboards, that makes 36. The other 33 were in or on a motor vehicle: 27 drivers and 6 passengers. The same pattern holds by crash: a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle was involved in 36 of the 66, or 55 percent.

Motorcycle and moped riders were 17 of those 33, just over half, and 25 percent of all 69 deaths; FARS counts riders among the drivers and passengers. Forty-one of the 66 crashes involved a single vehicle, 24 involved two and 1 involved three or more. For someone hit while walking, cycling or riding, the claim usually turns on visibility, speed and right of way, and on where each person was in the seconds before the impact.

Every fact and figure in this example is hypothetical. Suppose that in 2026 you were riding a bicycle at 9 p.m. along a lighted multilane road in Largo, away from any intersection, when an overtaking car hit you from behind. You fractured your pelvis and an arm and ran up $70,000 in medical bills. Florida requires $10,000 of personal injury protection (PIP), which pays certain losses whoever caused the crash, although for a cyclist, whether any PIP policy pays, and which one, depends on the insurance involved. A pain-and-suffering claim against the at-fault driver is generally allowed only when the injury meets Florida's tort threshold, which state law defines.

Florida allows a claim against the at-fault driver for pain and suffering only when the injury involves significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability (other than scarring or disfigurement), significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, or death (Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2)). Suppose your orthopedic surgeon finds the pelvis injury permanent, which would meet that test, and your losses beyond PIP, pain and suffering included, are valued at $160,000. The driver's insurer says you swerved into the lane and puts 45 percent of the fault on you; because that share is not more than 50 percent, Florida's rule only reduces the award, to $88,000.

If a dashcam in a following car showed you riding straight along the edge of the lane and your share fell to 10 percent, $144,000 would remain; at 51 percent, you would get nothing from the driver. Florida does not require bodily-injury liability coverage, so what the driver actually carries can limit what is collected. If the claim did not settle, a lawsuit would have to be filed within two years of the crash.

Calling the police is a legal duty after many Largo crashes, not a courtesy. Under Fla. Stat. § 316.065, the driver in a crash that injures or kills anyone, or causes apparent damage of at least $2,000 to any vehicle or property, must notify the police immediately, by the quickest means; the threshold was $500 before October 1, 2026. Inside a city that means the local police, elsewhere the county sheriff or the nearest Florida Highway Patrol station. For a damage-only crash that needs no police report, the driver has 10 days to send FLHSMV a written self-report on form HSMV 90011S (Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e)).

For a cyclist or a pedestrian, the most useful evidence is often the first to disappear: debris, marks on the pavement, where the bicycle came to rest and camera footage that may be recorded over within days. Medical records matter just as much, because the tort threshold is proved with them. A few early steps protect both your health and the record:

• To request a copy through FLHSMV's Florida Crash Portal later, keep the report number and the responding agency's name.
• Keep the bicycle, helmet, lights and clothing as they were, and photograph each item.
• Photograph the lane, the road edge and the street lights, returning at the same hour if it is safe.
• Ask your own insurer in writing which coverage, PIP included, applies.
• Workers hurt on the job have 30 days to tell the employer, and generally two years to file for workers' compensation.

If a Largo crash claim becomes a lawsuit, it would generally be filed in the Pinellas County Circuit Court, although an attorney decides whether another court is the proper one for a particular case. Florida's deadline for negligence claims that arose after March 24, 2023, is two years (Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a)). HB 837 shortened it from four years and, in the same law, moved Florida to modified comparative negligence.

Two other clocks can apply. A family's wrongful death claim generally must be brought within two years of the death (Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(e)), with no deadline for a death caused by an intentional act under §§ 782.04 or 782.07 against a natural person. A claim against a city, county or state body that may share responsibility has its own deadline: 3 years to present it in writing, or 2 years for wrongful death (Fla. Stat. § 768.28(6)(a)). The time to sue after such a claim is set separately by state law.

States split sharply on fault rules. Florida's 51 percent bar gives the rider in the example a reduced award at 45 percent and nothing at 51. Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia keep contributory negligence, under which a person found even slightly at fault can generally be barred from recovering at all, so the same rider, at only 10 percent, could get nothing in those states.

Insurance and deadlines differ too. Florida shares its no-fault system with Michigan, New York and New Jersey, so certain losses are paid first by the injured person's own coverage; most at-fault states instead begin with a claim against the other driver's liability insurer. Tennessee gives one year for most injury claims, half of Florida's two. And Florida's 51 percent bar has an exception of its own: it does not apply to medical negligence claims under chapter 766 (Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6)).

A real night-time claim would turn on the lighting, the rider's lane position and each person's coverage, which an attorney would review. Ask Legal Matters is a personal injury lead-generation service that collects free case review requests from injured people in the United States and shares them with independent attorneys and law firms. It is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in your state. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency. If you were hurt in a crash in Largo, on a bicycle, on foot or in a vehicle, you can request a free case review.

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More on this type of claim: Car accidents: evidence, deadlines and when to ask an attorney.

• Largo, Florida: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation

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