Bicycle Accidents
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San Diego Bicycle Accident Attorney
San Diego boasts the perfect climate for bicycle riders and cyclists. Thankfully, there are seemingly endless interesting and inspiring places to ride in both urban and rural areas of San Diego County, which allows riders a true variety of riding experiences. Unfortunately, not all of these riding experiences prove to be positive experiences. Far too often, rides that start optimistically end in collisions. If you have recently been injured as a result of a bicycle or motorized bike accident, you are certainly not alone. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2015 alone, approximately 467,000 injuries caused by bicycle accidents resulted in the need for professional medical attention.
Recovering from a bicycle accident can be a long and involved process. The medical costs, lost earning potential, and other financial challenges necessitated by the recovery process can strain a family’s finances to the breaking point. Thankfully, California law is very protective of bicycle accident injury victims. As it is rare that cyclists, bike riders, and scooter operators are solely to blame for the accident-related harm they have suffered, chances are good that if you’ve been injured in one of these kinds of accidents, you likely have opportunities for compensation available to you at this time.
Comprehensive Representation for Injured Bicycle Riders and Cyclists
The aftermath of a bicycle accident can feel isolating, as you seek to recover from your injuries in an effort to return to school, work, and/or other personal pursuits. However, you don’t have to navigate the legal and financial challenges stemming from your collision alone. Our firm’s experienced legal team has earned a reputation for providing quality, comprehensive legal services for injured bike, motorized bike, scooter, and cycling accident injury victims. Our time-tested and client-focused approach is efficient, effective, compassionate, and respectful of everything that our clients are grappling with.
If you choose to work with our firm after attending a no-cost, risk-free, confidential consultation with our firm, know that we’ll work tenaciously to secure any and all compensation to which you may be entitled at this time. When you work with our firm, you and your case will be treated with the attention that you and your case deserve – you’ll never feel like you’re “just another client” to us.
Filing a Bicycle Accident Personal Injury Claim – The Basics
Not all accident-related injuries are legally actionable. Say that you were riding along a well-maintained, well-lit trail when a wild animal darts into your path. To avoid the animal, you swerve and find yourself face down in the dirt. In this scenario, there is no one – not even you – who can be held legally accountable for the injuries you’ve suffered in the crash. It is only when three fundamental criteria are met that a successful
personal injury suit can be filed.
A defendant – whether an individual, corporation, municipality, or alternative legal entity – owed you a specific “duty of care” under the law. In bicycle accident cases, it is usually a motorist or a government agency in charge of
safely maintaining surfaces that owes accident victims a duty of care that helps to ensure their safety.
The defendant, through their actions or inactions, behaved in ways that are deemed negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous under California law.
The defendant’s duty of care breach served as a substantial factor in the direct cause of your injuries.
It is not your responsibility to understand whether your unique circumstances meet these fundamental criteria. When our experienced legal team understands the ins and outs of the injurious circumstances that led to your harm, we’ll give you our objective assessment of whether you have strong grounds to file legal action at this time.
Note that different standards apply when accident injury victims are seeking insurance settlement compensation. If you haven’t already spoken with the insurance providers with whom others involved in your collision hold policies, please refrain from doing so until you attend your free consultation. Insurance companies are for-profit businesses, so they resist paying injury victims the full amount to which they are entitled. As a result, their representatives are trained to find loopholes through which a claim may be devalued or rejected. Instead of risking that something you say to an insurance representative may lead to a devaluation or rejection of your claim, allow our team to negotiate on your behalf. We have extensive experience successfully navigating the insurance negotiation process and we’ll use that experience to secure you as much compensation as is possible under the circumstances.
Causation, Fault, and Assumptions
Before we can determine whether you have a strong cause for legal action, we’ll need to objectively assess the cause(s) of your accident. As explained above, some accident causes are legally actionable, while others are not. If the circumstances that caused your collision are legally actionable, we’ll need to evaluate who may be held legally liable for the harm you have suffered.
It is critically important that you avoid making any assumptions about the potential strengths and weaknesses of your case before you’ve spoken with us. Too often, injury victims assume that because they may have contributed to the injurious circumstances that led to their harm that they can’t hold anyone else accountable under the law. This simply isn’t true. California’s “comparative negligence” approach to personal injury scenarios means that even if you were partially responsible for your injurious circumstances, you may still hold other negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous parties liable for their contributions to those circumstances.
If it is determined that you were partially to blame for the cause of your crash, the compensation you’ll be eligible to collect will be reduced according to the percentage of fault you’ve been assigned. For example, if you’re 25 percent to blame for the accident and your harm is valued at $200,000, you can still seek $150,000 in damages from those parties who are 75 percent at fault.
When Riders Are Injured While “On the Job”
When Riders Are Injured While “On the Job”
San Diego’s uniquely temperate climate allows certain work to be done in nontraditional ways. A staggering amount of food is sold on trucks out in the open. Classes are held for children outdoors year-round. And many jobs that are only sustained via passenger vehicles in other parts of the country can be pursued on bicycles in San Diego. If your bicycle accident occurred while you were engaging in work-related activities, you may be entitled to receive
workers’ compensation benefits as a result of your harm. If you are eligible for this form of compensation, you can still file a personal injury lawsuit if your situation meets the criteria for a successful action. However, you won’t be able to sue your employer – only third parties (such as motorists) may be sued in
personal injury suits for work-related harm when victims are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits.
Note that workers’ compensation is not a fault-based system. As a result, you may be entitled to these benefits even if you were totally responsible for your accident, provided that you weren’t trying to get hurt and you weren’t impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of your crash. If you’re unsure of whether your job classification entitles you to workers’ compensation coverage, our legal team can clarify that for you during your free consultation.
“Dooring” Accident Victims
If, while riding a bike or motorized bike, you were injured when a motorist “doored” you, you may be able to hold the motorist accountable via the personal injury claims process, even though their vehicle was not in motion at the time your harm occurred. Motorists are responsible for their actions, whether or not their vehicles were in motion. Therefore, if someone negligently, recklessly, or intentionally failed to keep oncoming travelers safe by flinging open their door without looking or considering their surroundings, they may be held accountable via the same legal standards that apply to motion-based accidents.
Contact Our Firm Today for a Free Case Evaluation
If you have been injured in a bicycle accident, chances are good that you’re entitled to compensation from at least one party responsible for the harm you have suffered. Don’t wait until the financial consequences of your accident have overwhelmed your personal finances to explore your opportunities for legal and financial recourse. Schedule a confidential, no-risk, free case evaluation with our experienced legal team today. Once you’ve been empowered to make whatever informed choice is best for you and your family at this time, our team will do everything we can to provide you with the legal support and guidance you’ll require to secure any and all compensation to which you may be entitled. We look forward to speaking with you.
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