Truck accidents on I-4, I-75 and I-275

It depends on the road. The interstates are part of the State Highway System (opens in a new tab), which the state transportation department has the power to construct, maintain and operate (opens in a new tab). Hillsborough County is in the department’s District Seven, which is based in Tampa (opens in a new tab).

The Lee Roy Selmon Expressway is a 17-mile toll road with an upper deck of reversible express lanes (opens in a new tab). The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority owns, maintains and operates it (opens in a new tab), and Florida law makes that authority an agency of the state (opens in a new tab), under the name Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority.

The transportation department’s Tampa Bay regional freight plan, in a February 2025 update marked draft, says the I-4/Selmon Expressway Connector provides direct access between I-4 and major freight terminals at Tampa’s port, with dedicated truck lanes (opens in a new tab). On the Howard Frankland Bridge the department says only passenger vehicles, registered vanpools and buses are allowed in the I-275 express lanes (opens in a new tab). The list does not include commercial trucks.

Florida’s highway safety department counted 2,982 crashes involving commercial motor vehicles in Hillsborough County in 2024, with 10 deaths (opens in a new tab). That count covers the whole county and includes buses and smaller commercial vehicles as well as tractor-trailers.

The transportation department’s work on the Downtown Tampa Interchange, where I-275 meets I-4, started in fall 2023 and is expected to finish in spring 2027 (opens in a new tab). Its draft freight plan update says a 2023 national ranking of truck bottlenecks ranked that junction the 73rd worst in the nation, and the only Florida location in the top 100 (opens in a new tab).

On I-275 toward St. Petersburg, the department opened a new southbound Howard Frankland Bridge in 2025 (opens in a new tab), with completion of that project estimated for late 2026. At the Tampa end of the bridge, work on the Westshore Interchange, where I-275 meets SR 60, started in January 2026 (opens in a new tab).

On I-75, the department began adding a lane in each direction from south of the Tampa Bypass Canal to south of Fowler Avenue in December 2024 (opens in a new tab), with completion estimated for 2029. A widening of I-4 from I-75 to west of the Polk Parkway is in design, with construction anticipated to begin in 2028 (opens in a new tab).

The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority has a project of its own, which will widen the Selmon to six lanes for 4.5 miles, from west of Himes Avenue to east of Florida Avenue in downtown Tampa (opens in a new tab).

The rules are stricter inside a work zone. Florida prohibits holding a phone while driving in a work zone where construction personnel are present (opens in a new tab).

There are two sets, and which one applies depends on whether the haul is interstate or in-state commerce. A load that began or will end outside Florida is interstate commerce even on a truck that never leaves the state (opens in a new tab). Under the federal rules a freight driver may drive a total of 11 hours (opens in a new tab) inside a 14-hour window that opens after 10 consecutive hours off duty.

Florida allows more in commerce that begins and ends inside the state. A driver in that commerce may drive 12 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, and may not drive after the end of the 16th hour (opens in a new tab). None of the in-state allowances applies to a driver hauling hazardous materials in amounts that require placards.

A driver who is out of hours needs somewhere to stop. The transportation department is building a truck parking facility with 160 spaces (opens in a new tab) on I-4 at County Line Road in Plant City, with construction expected to finish in late 2026.

Not always. A driver in in-state commerce who stays within 150 air miles of the truck’s base, and is not hauling placarded hazardous materials, does not have to keep the federal record of duty status (opens in a new tab), provided the carrier keeps time records in its place.

The carrier’s time records are then the place to start.

Where logs are required, the carrier must keep them for not less than 6 months (opens in a new tab). So the first questions in a case are what kind of truck it was, where it was going, and what records its company was required to keep.

That depends first on the county. A case is generally brought in the county where the defendant resides or where the claim arose (opens in a new tab), and these roads cross county lines.

The Howard Frankland Bridge runs between Pinellas and Hillsborough counties (opens in a new tab), so a crash on the Pinellas side may be filed there.

Who the claim is against matters as well. The transportation department is a department of the State, and Florida law makes the expressway authority an agency of the state (opens in a new tab). A claim against a Florida county or state agency must first be presented in writing within 3 years, or 2 in a wrongful death case (opens in a new tab). What the government can be made to pay is limited by the same statute.