You can wear the best possible safety equipment and still be seriously injured when you ride a bicycle and are hit by a motor vehicle. When being hit by a truck, bus, or car as you ride your bike, you need to look for bicycle accident lawyers to help you recover and get the compensation you are entitled to by law. Why is that?
Holding The Careless Driver Responsible
This is the most important reason why you want to hire a bicycle accident lawyer. It does not matter if you are riding the bicycle to exercise, for leisure, or you use it as the main transportation mode. Whenever you get on your bike, you know that there are dangers all around you. This is because you are sharing the road with much larger vehicles.
When a careless, aggressive, speeding, drowsy, or distracted driver is on the road, they can cause devastation in any collision with a bicycle.
The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) highlights that there is an increase in the number of bicycle accidents happening every single year. Basically, in 2013, we saw 743 fatalities among bicyclists, with around 48,000 being injured. And alcohol was involved in around 34% of all fatal accidents. These are statistics that kept going up and right now, we are at alarmingly high rates.
Bicycle accidents can be caused by so many different causes, not just driving under the influence. Some of the very common ones we see way too often are:
- A vehicle turns left through traffic gaps or at intersections without noticing there is a bike that would be hit.
- A vehicle turns right and goes right into or in front of the cyclist.
- Opening car doors without looking around for bike riders.
- Passing vehicles side-swipe bicycles.
- Vehicles rear-ending bikes.
- Walkways or roadways are in a very bad condition.
- The rider makes an error and is not attentive to what happens around him.
- Dogs chase bicycles.
What Should You Do After The Bike Accident?
If you intend to file an injury case for what happened as you were riding your bicycle, what you do right after the collision is very important. Whenever involved in bicycle accidents, remember these very important tips:
- Never leave the scene of the bike accident unless you have to because your injuries are very serious. Ideally, you need to be there when the police arrive. This is necessary even when you are not injured. Accident victims often end up feeling pain a few hours or even days after a crash. Getting checked is always the best option.
- Do not negotiate with the at-fault drivers. It is common to accept blame in a verbal conversation only to then recant when discussing with insurance companies. The police need to document what happened to protect you from something like this.
- Try to find some witnesses and get their contact data.
- Use your phone or a disposable camera to photograph the bike, the scene of the accident, and all the other vehicles involved. Also, photograph injuries and take wide photos to highlight conditions at the time of the accident.
