Trinity is a community of subdivisions behind walls, connected by roads designed to move cars quickly between them. SR-54 is six lanes. Little Road is four. Crossing points are far apart, and the people who cross anyway are students walking to J.W. Mitchell High School, visitors and staff crossing to HCA Florida Trinity Hospital, shoppers at Mitchell Ranch Plaza, and neighbors walking dogs along Trinity Boulevard and Duck Slough Boulevard. Smart Growth America's Dangerous by Design report, released in June 2026, ranked the Tampa Bay metro that includes Pasco the eighth most dangerous in the country for pedestrians.
Conde-Huggins Accident Injury Lawyers represents people hit by vehicles in Trinity, and the families of those who do not survive, from our office at 6609 Ridge Road in Port Richey. The consultation is free and we come to the hospital. Call (240) 421-5511.
Where people walking in Trinity are hit
Little Road at the high school. J.W. Mitchell High School sits at 2323 Little Road on a county road the Pasco MPO lists among the corridors where fatal crashes cluster. Students cross before and after school, sometimes before sunrise, while drivers in the school zone are often looking at the car ahead rather than the curb.
SR-54 at Little Road and Hospital Boulevard. The signal at Little Road serves Mitchell Ranch Plaza; the signal at Hospital Boulevard serves the hospital. Both have long crossings over six lanes and right-turning drivers watching for a gap in traffic rather than for a person in the crosswalk.
SR-54 at Mitchell Ranch Road. Medical offices on the north side, neighborhoods and schools on the south, no signal, and a curve that limits what drivers see. FHP has recorded 129 crashes here since July 2022, and anyone on foot is at the mercy of the same sight line.
Trinity Boulevard and Duck Slough Boulevard. Residential in character, arterial in speed. Drivers leaving subdivision entrances look left for cars and turn right into a jogger.
PIP when you were on foot
Florida's no-fault system covers a pedestrian, and the first job is to find the right policy. If you own an insured car, or live with a relative who does, that policy's PIP pays first even though you were walking: 80 percent of medical bills and 60 percent of lost income up to $10,000. If no one in your household has an auto policy, the PIP on the vehicle that struck you generally applies. Either way, Fla. Stat. § 627.736 requires initial treatment within 14 days, and the full $10,000 is available only when a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner documents an emergency medical condition. The emergency department at HCA Florida Trinity, 9330 SR-54 East, is where most Trinity pedestrians are taken, and the chart from that visit is the first piece of evidence in the case.
Beyond PIP, the claim is against the driver and, because the driver was operating a motor vehicle, pain and suffering requires a permanent injury, significant scarring or death under Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2). Pedestrian injuries, from fractures to head trauma, usually meet that test, but the treating physician must say so in writing.
Fault, and the argument that you were not in a crosswalk
The driver's insurer will say you were outside a crosswalk, in dark clothing, distracted. Fla. Stat. § 316.130 does require a pedestrian crossing outside a marked or unmarked crosswalk to yield, and it also requires every driver to exercise due care to avoid hitting any pedestrian and to yield to one in a crosswalk. Fault is shared by percentages under Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6): your recovery is reduced by your share, and lost entirely only if your share exceeds 50 percent.
What moves that percentage is evidence, and we go after it in the first week: video from the plazas, medical offices and hospital entrances along SR-54 and Little Road, which overwrites in days; the striking vehicle's event data recorder; the driver's phone records once suit is filed; FDOT and county signal timing for the crossing; and, in a fatal case, the FHP traffic homicide file.
Hurt walking in Trinity? Call (240) 421-5511 before you speak to the driver's insurer.
When the crossing itself is the hazard
SR-54 belongs to FDOT. Little Road, Trinity Boulevard and Duck Slough Boulevard belong to Pasco County. A crossing with no lighting, a signal with no pedestrian phase, or a hazard the agency knew about and left alone can support a claim under Fla. Stat. § 768.28. The statute caps recovery at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, requires written notice before suit, and shields many design decisions from liability, so these claims are narrow. They add to the claim against the driver; they rarely replace it. The years-long delay in building a signal at SR-54 and Mitchell Ranch Road is a fact we can use to describe the danger, not by itself a basis for suing the county.
Two years, and the evidence does not wait that long
A negligence suit must be filed within two years of the crash under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a), and a wrongful death suit within two years under § 95.11(5)(e). A roadway claim adds the § 768.28 notice step on its own schedule. None of that is the real constraint. The plaza camera at SR-54 and Little Road will record over the day you were hit long before any deadline arrives.
From HCA Florida Trinity to Ridge Road
We meet Trinity pedestrians at the hospital on SR-54, at HCA Florida Bayonet Point in Hudson when the injuries are severe, or at home anywhere in the Trinity Communities. Our office is at 6609 Ridge Road, Suite 4, between Little Road and US-19 in Port Richey, a short drive north on Little Road. Clementine Conde has practiced in Florida courts since 1992 and handles every case herself; a Trinity pedestrian suit is filed at the West Pasco Judicial Center on Little Road in New Port Richey. Our pedestrian accident page explains Florida's rules for people on foot in more depth, our Trinity page covers the other injury claims we handle in the community, and if the person hit was riding a bicycle, our bicycle accident page applies.
Talk to a Port Richey pedestrian accident lawyer about your Trinity crash today
The 14-day PIP clock is running and the video is already being overwritten. Call Conde-Huggins at (240) 421-5511 at any hour, or contact us online. There is no charge for the consultation, no attorney's fee unless we win, and staff members speak Spanish.
Free consultation, no attorney's fee unless we win. We meet Trinity clients at home, in the hospital, or at our office on Ridge Road. (240) 421-5511
Other Trinity cases
Pedestrian accident lawyer in nearby communities
Questions people ask us about trinity pedestrian accident cases
My son was hit walking to J.W. Mitchell High School on Little Road. Does the school zone matter?
Yes. A driver in an active school zone is held to the reduced speed limit and to a heightened expectation that children will be present, and a violation is strong evidence of negligence. A minor's claim is brought by a parent or guardian on the child's behalf, and the parents have their own claim for the medical expenses they paid. Insurers still assign fault to teenagers who crossed mid-block or looked at a phone, so witness statements from other students and any school or business video along Little Road should be secured in the first days.
I was crossing SR-54 at Hospital Boulevard with the walk signal and a driver turning right says he had a green light. Who is at fault?
A green light does not relieve a turning driver of the duty to yield to a pedestrian lawfully in the crosswalk on a walk signal. Fla. Stat. § 316.075 requires a driver facing a green light to yield to pedestrians in an adjacent crosswalk, and § 316.130 requires due care toward every pedestrian. The driver's insurer will still argue you stepped off the curb late or outside the markings, which is why FDOT's signal timing records and video from the hospital entrance matter. Call (240) 421-5511 before you give the insurer a statement about where you were standing.
There is no sidewalk where I was hit on Trinity Boulevard. Does that count against me?
Not by itself. Fla. Stat. § 316.130 says that where a sidewalk is not provided, a pedestrian should walk on the shoulder on the left side of the road, facing traffic. If you were doing that, you were where the law told you to be. Even if you were not, the question under Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6) is the percentage of fault, and a driver who drifted onto the shoulder or was looking at a phone carries most of it. The missing sidewalk can also be relevant to a claim against the road's owner.
Who writes the report when a pedestrian is hit in Trinity, and what if the driver left?
Trinity has no police department of its own. FHP Troop C handles most crashes on SR-54 and every fatal pedestrian crash, and the Pasco Sheriff's Office responds to many on Little Road and Trinity Boulevard, often with a short-form report. If the driver fled, report it the same day, because uninsured motorist coverage on your household auto policy treats an unidentified driver as uninsured and requires prompt notice. We canvass the plazas and medical offices along SR-54 for video that can identify the vehicle.
Can I bring a claim against Pasco County for the lack of a crosswalk on Little Road?
In narrow circumstances. Pasco County owns Little Road and Trinity Boulevard, and FDOT owns SR-54. A claim for a known hazard that the agency failed to correct is possible under Fla. Stat. § 768.28, but recovery is capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, written notice must be presented before suit, and decisions about where to put crosswalks and signals are often treated as immune planning judgments. The claim against the driver and your own UM coverage comes first; a roadway claim may add to it.