Andrew Pickett Law is a top Melbourne bicycle accident law firm that handles injury cases throughout Melbourne and Brevard County for victims who need help getting medical treatment and financial recovery. Andrew Pickett has lived in Brevard County since 1987 and has tried injury cases to verdict in the circuit that hears them.
What You Need To Know
- After a crash, riders hear plenty about what they did wrong and very little about what Florida law gives them. Learn what Florida actually gives a cyclist before an insurance company puts a number on your file.
- Most riders don’t need a lawyer to read a police report, and plenty do need a lawyer to make an insurer move. We’d rather you finish here knowing which situation you’re in, whether or not you ever call us.
- Florida law says nobody can use a cyclist’s failure to wear a helmet as evidence of negligence. The statute covers any person, so it’s protecting adult riders too, not just children.
- Riding after dark without lights is a different matter. Florida requires a white lamp on the front and a red lamp and reflector at the rear.
- A cyclist moving slower than traffic normally keeps right. You can leave the right side of the lane to pass, to turn, or to avoid a hazard.
- On a sidewalk or in a crosswalk you’ve got the rights of a pedestrian. Most riders don’t expect the pedestrian rules to apply to them, and those rules are stronger.
- Photograph the bike from every side today, damage and reflectors included, before anyone repairs it. Insurers put a number on a bike claim early, and that number is hard to move later.
Start with what Florida actually gives a cyclist, because an insurer will start with what you did wrong. Whether you need a lawyer, the photographs and the fee come next. The road rules, the coverage order and the statute citations sit further down.
What the Law Gives a Cyclist That an Insurer Won’t Mention
After a crash, riders hear plenty about what they did wrong and very little about what Florida law gives them. Learn what the law gives you before an insurance company puts a number on your file.
Florida law says nobody can use a cyclist’s failure to wear a helmet as evidence of negligence. The statute covers any person, so it protects adult riders too, not just children.
A cyclist moving slower than traffic normally keeps right, and you can leave the right side of the lane to pass, to turn, or to avoid a hazard. A driver passing you owes you at least three feet of clearance under Florida’s safe-passing law.
On a sidewalk or in a crosswalk you’ve got the rights of a pedestrian. Most riders don’t expect the pedestrian rules to apply to them, and the pedestrian rules are stronger.
You Need a Lawyer to Move the Insurer, Not to Read the Report
Most riders don’t need a lawyer to read a police report, and plenty do need a lawyer to make an insurer move. We’d rather you finish here knowing which situation you’re in, whether or not you ever call us.
You can settle a bicycle claim alone when the driver admitted fault, your own policy paid the first bills, you healed in a few weeks, and the driver’s insurer paid the remaining bills without an argument. Take the offer and keep every dollar.
Two sentences change a simple claim into a fight. An insurer tells you a cyclist has no coverage, or an insurer starts asking why you weren’t in the bike lane. Either sentence is an argument rather than a rule.
Call us before you answer either sentence. The call and the review cost nothing, and you’ll know what the statute says before you say anything on the record.
Photograph the Bike Before Anyone Repairs It
Photograph the bike from every side today, damage and reflectors included, before anyone repairs it. Insurers put a number on a bike claim early, and the early number is hard to move later.
Photograph your lights as well. Riding after dark without lights is a different matter from riding without a helmet: Florida requires a white lamp on the front and a red lamp and reflector at the rear, and an insurer will ask.
See a doctor within 14 days of the crash whether you own a car or not. Florida’s no-fault system treats a cyclist struck by a motor vehicle the same way it treats a pedestrian, so your own auto policy or a household member’s pays the first $10,000 of treatment.
Keep the helmet, the clothing and the wrecked parts unwashed and unrepaired. Damage to gear shows the forces in a crash in a way a memory can’t.
Your Bicycle Accident Lawyer Is Paid When You Are
Andrew Pickett Law works on a contingency fee only. Our fee is a share of whatever we recover for you, and we charge no fee at all if we recover nothing. Nothing changes hands to get started, and you’ll never see an hourly bill.
Florida law caps a contingency share on a sliding scale, so no firm sets its own ceiling. We back the Bar’s cap with a commitment of our own. We work your case to its maximum value, and we pay the filing fees, order the medical records and hire the experts while you heal.
Ask any firm you talk to, including us, who pays the advanced costs if you lose. Firms answer the question differently, so get the answer in writing before you sign anything.
In Brevard Since 1987, in Its Courtrooms for Years
Andrew Pickett has lived in Brevard County since 1987, and he spent years prosecuting cases in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit before he represented injured people. Brevard judges try Melbourne injury cases in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. He trained at the Trial Lawyers College, and he takes injury cases through jury verdict rather than settling every file.
You’ll deal with the lawyer on your case rather than a call center. Our clients keep returning to the same subject in their reviews: each client knew what was happening while the case was happening. We’ll tell you the next step and roughly when it comes, and if something changes, you’ll hear about the change from us.
Tell Us What the Insurer Said and We’ll Check the Coverage
A first call is a conversation, not a commitment. You describe the crash and what the insurer has told you so far, and we’ll tell you whether the coverage answer you got was right.
Bring the crash report number if you have it, and the name of your own car insurer if you own a car. You can call with no paperwork at all.
If Andrew Pickett Law takes your case, our fee comes out of a recovery and nothing comes out of your pocket while the case runs. If the claim doesn’t need a lawyer, we’ll tell you and you can take the offer.
Bicycle Accident Lawyers Serving Melbourne and the Space Coast
Melbourne rides. Commuters take Wickham Road and US-1, club rides loop the Indian River Lagoon and cross the Eau Gallie Causeway, beachside riders share A1A through Indialantic and Satellite Beach, and the Viera and Suntree trail network feeds cyclists onto arterial roads at exactly the intersections where drivers are not looking for them.
Bike crashes are not random; they repeat in patterns. The right hook — a driver passes you, then turns right across your line. The left cross — an oncoming driver turns left through your lane. The drive-out from a plaza or side street, and dooring along on-street parking downtown. Each pattern has a known fault picture, and naming it early shapes the whole claim.
The Three-Foot Rule and a Cyclist’s Rights on the Road
Under Fla. Stat. §316.2065, a bicycle is a vehicle: cyclists have the same rights to Florida roads as drivers, and the same duties. Drivers, in turn, must give at least three feet of clearance when passing a bicycle under Florida’s safe-passing law — a rule broken on Wickham Road every rush hour.
Two more points cyclists rarely hear from an adjuster. Florida requires helmets only for riders under 16 — and by statute, an adult’s choice to ride without one cannot be used as evidence of negligence in an injury claim. If an insurer hints your recovery should shrink because of a helmet, that argument fails as a matter of law. And riding outside a bike lane is frequently legal — Florida law permits leaving the lane to avoid debris, pass another rider, or make a left turn.
Who Pays Your Medical Bills After a Bike Crash
Florida’s no-fault system treats a cyclist struck by a motor vehicle the same way it treats a pedestrian: your own auto policy’s Personal Injury Protection (PIP) — or a household family member’s — pays the first $10,000 of treatment, even though you were on a bike. No auto policy in the household means the striking driver’s PIP applies.
Serious cycling injuries — head trauma, spinal injuries, complex fractures — are treated at Holmes Regional Medical Center, the region’s trauma center. Everything PIP does not reach — surgery, rehabilitation, the bike itself, lost income, pain and suffering, permanent limitation — is recovered through the injury claim against the at-fault driver, and that claim is built on evidence: the crash report, the driver’s speed and braking from the vehicle’s event data recorder, GPS and camera data from your own ride, and the scene itself.
Two Years to File — and Less Than That to Preserve the Proof
Florida’s 2023 tort reform (House Bill 837) gives you two years from the crash to file a negligence claim, and bars recovery entirely if you are found more than 50% at fault — which is why insurers work the “cyclist came out of nowhere” theme from the first phone call. Ride-camera footage, GPS data, storefront video, and paint transfer on the vehicle answer that theme, but none of it waits two years to disappear. We preserve it first and argue later.
Two Years to File, and Less to Save the Evidence
If you were struck while riding, you must act decisively. Under Florida law (House Bill 837), the statute of limitations for personal injury claims based on negligence is two years from the exact date of the accident.
Waiting to secure legal representation can cripple your claim. Within months, the bicycle itself — often the single most important piece of physical evidence — is repaired or discarded, roadway conditions change, and witness recollections fade. Even when a crash seems minor at the scene, internal or cognitive injuries can take weeks to surface. To protect your financial security, call a lawyer as soon as you are medically stable.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bicycle Accident Claims
Do cyclists have the same rights as drivers?
Yes. Under Fla. Stat. §316.2065, a bicycle is legally a vehicle: cyclists are entitled to the road, and drivers must yield to them like any other vehicle — and give at least three feet of clearance when passing.
If you were hurt riding in Melbourne, start here
Does no-fault insurance cover me if I was on a bicycle?
Florida’s no-fault rules turn on a definition — a self-propelled vehicle with four or more wheels, licensed for the road.1 A bicycle fails on every part of it, which is why you are not required to insure one. But a cyclist struck by a car is covered by no-fault benefits anyway, from their own household policy, a resident relative’s, or the striking vehicle’s. The main Melbourne page walks through the order.
The consequence runs both ways. Because you are inside that system, the permanent-injury requirement reaches you too. A motorcyclist is outside both. A cyclist is inside both.
Can they blame me for not wearing a helmet?
An adult cyclist in Florida is not required to wear a helmet; riders and passengers under 16 are.2 What follows is the part riders are rarely told: Florida law says that not wearing a helmet may not be treated as evidence of negligence — yours, or a parent’s for a child.3
That is not an argument to be won. It is a bar. If an adjuster opens by asking whether you were wearing a helmet and implying the answer changes your claim, that line depends on you not knowing this.
What if I had no lights on my bike?
So here is the other half. Riding after dark without lights is a real problem for a claim, and no statute protects you from it. Between sunset and sunrise Florida requires a white lamp on the front and both a red lamp and a reflector on the rear.4 A rider hit at dusk with no lights is likely to have it raised, and it can move the share of blame assigned to them — which in Florida is not a discount but a threshold you can fall through entirely.
If that is your situation the claim is not over. It means the work is in the rest of the evidence rather than in arguing about the lights, and it means you should say so to your lawyer on day one rather than letting them find out from the police report.
Was I allowed to ride away from the kerb?
Riding away from the kerb is legal in more situations than drivers assume. A cyclist moving slower than traffic normally keeps right — but is entitled to leave that position to pass, to prepare for a left turn, or to avoid any hazard, including a lane that is simply too narrow. Florida defines that last one: a lane too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side.5 On much of Melbourne’s older grid, that describes the lane you were in.
Riders may travel two abreast where that does not impede traffic, and a group of ten or fewer may move through a stop sign together after stopping.6 A driver overtaking you must leave at least three feet — and if they cannot, they must stay behind you until they can.7 That waiting duty is a 2021 addition and it is the part drivers do not know.
Am I allowed to ride on the sidewalk around Melbourne?
On a sidewalk or in a crosswalk you have the rights of a pedestrian, which is a stronger position than most riders realise — though you must yield to people on foot and give an audible warning before passing them.8 Whether you were allowed to be on that sidewalk at all is decided locally, and it changes when you cross a city line.
| Where | Riding on the sidewalk |
|---|---|
| City of Melbourne | No bicycle restriction. The downtown rule covers skateboards and scooters, not bicycles9 |
| Palm Bay | Prohibited in a business district — and the code does not say which sidewalks that means10 |
| Indian Harbour Beach | Expressly permitted by ordinance; separate ban inside Bicentennial Park11 |
| Satellite Beach | No sidewalk ban, but a rule requiring riders to use an adjacent bicycle path where one exists12 |
| West Melbourne, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach, unincorporated Brevard | No sidewalk-cycling ordinance found |
Where a local rule is vague, that tends to cut your way rather than against you. One example: an ordinance that bans sidewalk riding in a “business district” without defining the term or publishing a map leaves an insurer asserting something the city’s own code does not resolve. Question it rather than concede it.
Two of these sit awkwardly against state law — Satellite Beach’s requirement to leave the road for a path, and Palm Bay’s separate bicycle registration rules — because Florida’s traffic code is meant to be uniform statewide and local authority over cycling is limited. We are not aware of a Florida court ruling either way, so treat them as on the books and arguable, not as settled.
References
- Fla. Stat. § 627.732(3) — “motor vehicle” defined as a self-propelled vehicle with four or more wheels designed and required to be licensed for road use; Fla. Stat. § 316.003(4) — “bicycle”
- Fla. Stat. § 316.2065(3)(d) — helmet required for riders and passengers under 16
- Fla. Stat. § 316.2065(18) — failure to wear a bicycle helmet, or a parent’s failure to require one, may not be considered evidence of negligence or contributory negligence
- Fla. Stat. § 316.2065(7) — lamp on the front visible at 500 feet; lamp and reflector on the rear visible at 600 feet, between sunset and sunrise
- Fla. Stat. § 316.2065(5)(a) — lane position and the exceptions to it; § 316.2065(5)(a)3. defines a substandard-width lane as one “too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane”
- Fla. Stat. § 316.2065(6)(a)–(b) — riding two abreast; groups of ten or fewer proceeding through a stop sign
- Fla. Stat. § 316.083(2)–(3) — three-foot passing distance, and the duty to remain behind until it can be given, added by ch. 2021-180, Laws of Fla., effective 1 July 2021
- Fla. Stat. § 316.2065(9)–(10) — rights and duties of a pedestrian on a sidewalk or crosswalk; duty to yield and to signal before overtaking
- Melbourne Code of Ordinances §§ 56-89 to 56-91 — skateboards, skates and scooters restricted on sidewalks in the redevelopment areas; chapter 56 contains no bicycle provision
- Palm Bay Code of Ordinances § 72.44 — no riding on a sidewalk within a business district; the term is not defined in the city code
- Indian Harbour Beach Code of Ordinances § 19-153(a)(1) (Ord. No. 2025-07); § 12-70 — park exception
- Satellite Beach Code of Ordinances § 34-71 — use of an adjacent bicycle path required where one is provided. Fla. Stat. §§ 316.007, 316.008(1)(h) govern the extent of local authority over cycling
Other Injury Cases We Handle on the Space Coast
In addition to representing injured cyclists, Andrew Pickett Law handles many other accident and injury cases throughout Melbourne and Brevard County — see our Melbourne personal injury lawyers page, or explore a specific case type:
- Car Accident
- Truck Accident
- Motorcycle Accident
- Uber & Lyft Accident
- Pedestrian Accident
- Slip and Fall
- Wrongful Death
- Dog Bite Injury
- Boating Accident
Areas and Zip Codes Served From Our Melbourne Office
- 32901 – Downtown Melbourne / Crane Creek
- 32904 – West Melbourne
- 32934 – Wickham Park / North Melbourne
- 32935 – Eau Gallie / Croton Road Corridor
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Meet Andrew Pickett
Dealing with the murky policies of insurance companies designed to confuse and prevent you from receiving compensation is our expertise.
15+ years experience as a personal injury attorney.
Specialized in battling insurance companies.
95% settlement rate for clients.
Handled 450+ personal injury cases.
Collected more than $50 million for clients.
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Our team (attorney Tiffany Whitehouse, paralegals Vonda and Lindsey, our legal assistant Lauren, and Caroline) at Andrew Pickett Law has been absolutely amazing. They have been communicative from start to finish and have gone above and beyond in all aspects. They treated us like people, not like another number. Thank you for all of your help & guidance throughout what would have been an otherwise overwhelming and confusing process.
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3 months ago
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3 months ago
The team at Andrew Pickett is amazing. They helped me with two accidents and have been very attentive and communicative.
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3 months ago
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4 months ago
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Andrew and his team provided outstanding legal representation with a high level of professionalism, responsiveness, and attention to detail. He communicated clearly throughout the process and delivered a result we were very satisfied with. I truly appreciate his expertise and would highly recommend him to anyone in need of strong, reliable legal counsel.
christian leon
4 months ago
Working with Tiffany Whitehouse, Vonda, and Lauren at Andrew Pickett Law Firm was an amazing experience for me. They were really professional, attentive, and committed to my case from beginning to end. Their diligence and genuine concern for achieving the greatest result for me were what truly stood out. I genuinely felt like I was in good hands the entire time because of their dedication and teamwork, which made a difficult situation much easier to face. I got the best outcomes I could have imagined because of their hard work and knowledge. I am incredibly appreciative and would heartily suggest their team to anyone in need of legal assistance.
Erin Mclachlan
5 months ago
My experience is based on 2 settlements so far, still pending another case and 1 of the already settled cases M&M took but didn't want to keep after stringing me along for 4 months. So just choose Andrew Pickett Law, don't waste time with another injury attorney. Tiffany Whitehouse is great, she was confident in my cases, kept me informed and very accommodating. We didn't even have to go to court for those 2 cases. And because I had already trusted them with 2 cases, I also gave them a third case which settled quickly. My only regret, I just wish I had known about them sooner. Thanks for everything! I have already recommended my friends and clients and will continue.
Carlos Mangual
5 months ago
Tiffany Whitehouse has been a tremendous help to me through out my whole process majorly because of her communication she’s always one phone call or text away and really gives me comfort to have any of my questions or worries answered so quickly
Hannah Dorris
5 months ago
If I could give more than 5 stars I would. I cannot say enough amazing things about Tiffany Whitehouse and her entire team. From the very beginning, I felt genuinely cared for, supported, and prioritized throughout my entire experience. Tiffany is an absolute powerhouse her knowledge, confidence, and attention to detail truly set her apart from any attorney I’ve ever worked with. She knows her craft inside and out, and you can feel that level of expertise in every interaction. What really stood out to me was how responsive and efficient everyone was. Communication was always clear and timely, and I was never left wondering about the status of my case. Tiffany and her paralegal, Vonda, worked seamlessly together and made everything feel organized and stress-free. Vonda was incredibly kind, attentive, and always made sure I had what I needed. They both went above and beyond in ways that made a stressful situation feel manageable. I also want to recognize the admin team, especially Lauren and Hailey. They were so welcoming, helpful, and professional every time I interacted with them. It’s clear that this entire office operates with a high level of care, compassion, and dedication to their clients. Another thing that truly stood out to me was how thorough and patient everyone was when answering my questions. No matter how many I had, they took the time to explain everything in detail and made sure I fully understood even if it took 20 minutes. That level of patience and dedication meant so much and made me feel confident every step of the way. What meant the most to me is that they didn’t treat me like just another case they truly cared about me as a person. They checked in regularly, made sure I felt supported, and consistently went the extra mile. That kind of genuine compassion is rare to find. If you’re looking for a legal team that is not only highly skilled but also truly invested in you, I wholeheartedly recommend Andrew Pickett Law. They exceeded all of my expectations and I am beyond grateful for everything they’ve done for me. Thank you all SO incredibly much!