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Yes. In California, two parties can share a percentage of the blame in an accident. You may be assigned a percentage of the liability for your injury for not wearing a helmet, but at-fault drivers will still be required to pay you compensation according to their percentage of fault.

Hit-and-run drivers only add to the damage they cause to a cyclist’s life and wellbeing by leaving the scene of a crash. Fortunately, after a hit-and-run accident, an injured bicyclist can seek financial support even if the driver remains unidentified. 

If the at-fault driver is never located and brought to justice, cyclists may call upon their own car insurance policy under their uninsured motorist coverage. If victims don’t have car insurance, they may be covered on a family member’s policy. This coverage could combine with the rider’s own health insurance to make sure hospital bills get paid. Reimbursement for lost time at work and other damages could also be requested. 

In cases where a hit-and-run driver is found and charged, victims can file a claim for damages immediately. This claim would target the at-fault driver’s insurance company and ask for full compensation for the bills accumulated in recovery. The driver will likely face criminal charges over the hit-and-run. A criminal trial would proceed separately and wouldn’t affect a victim’s civil case.

In either case, victims are forced to rely on an insurance company in order to secure compensation. A personal injury attorney will play a major role in seeing that you receive what’s fair in support, even when you encounter resistance from your own insurance provider.

Never. Insurance agents will call you after an accident asking if they can record you giving a statement about what happened. Politely decline. They want you to say something they can use to weaken your case later. Let your Maison Law bicycle accident lawyer handle the communication with insurance agents.

Bicyclists are still required to stop at stop signs in California. 

A push to allow California cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs failed in October of 2021. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed AB122, also known as the Safety Stop bill.

Current Laws still require anyone on a bike to stop at a stop sign. Bicyclists on the road have the same rights as motorists in California and therefore must follow the same traffic laws and observe the same right-of-way. This requirement applies to intersections with stops signs and traffic lights.

Until changes are made, stopping at a stop sign is the law and bicyclists can be ticketed for violations.

Yes. If a tragic accident claimed your husband/wife, father/mother, or child you are permitted to file a wrongful death lawsuit. This civil lawsuit would ask for assistance with funeral costs, and estate settlement. The family should also be reimbursed for the financial support the deceased will no longer be able to provide through his or her job.

In California, children grow to love pedaling not long after they learn to walk. Unfortunately, children aren’t always considering their own safety when they ride, and careless drivers aren’t always on the lookout for a wayward child on a bike.

Thousands of children in California get into bicycle accidents each year. Many of these tragic accidents could be prevented if drivers would show more caution in neighborhoods, parks, and school zones. Drivers owe children a special “duty of care” as they travel and must take extreme care to avoid hitting a child on a bike or tricycle. 

When these accidents occur, drivers are generally always held liable, and their insurance companies should pay for the best medical care available for young victims. The child and the driver usually won’t share liability in an accident. Unless a child acts intentionally to cause an accident, the motorist will usually be considered the negligent party in a personal injury case. 

Since young children aren’t considered to have the capacity to make reasonably safe decisions for themselves and others, they tend to not be found negligent. The burden to keep young people safe on bikes falls to drivers who can slow down, pay more attention to the road, and expect the unexpected whenever children are at play.

Bicyclists face plenty of dangers from careless drivers on California roads. They sometimes also endure threats from dogs who aren’t leashed and decide to chase cyclists. The end result may be a painful dog bite.

Injured cyclists will wonder who is responsible for their recovery. California is a “strict liability” dog-bite state. This means dog owners bear responsibility when their dogs bite someone. 

In some states, the dog must have bitten someone in the past before owners can be held accountable. In California, the pet owner can still bear legal liability for a bite injury even if the dog had never displayed aggressive behavior before. 

One factor personal injury victims must show is that they were in a public place or lawfully in a private place when they were bitten.

In other cases, bicyclists can attempt to sue dog owners even if they aren’t bitten, but wreck or are struck while trying to evade the dog. A claim for damages is filed questioning whether the dog owner was guilty of negligence for not properly restraining the dog.

Bicyclists have as much right to the lanes as any motorist. However, they often travel on the far-right side of the street, near the curb, and that can put them dangerously close to parked cars.

A careless person inside a parked car can take too brief a look at approaching traffic and miss someone on a bike. They can exit and open a door in front of the cyclist and leave them no time or room to avoid a collision. This is known as a “dooring” accident and bicyclists can suffer severe injuries and be off their bikes for weeks or months during rehabilitation. 

The car may not have been in motion, but the passenger or driver in the vehicle is still liable for all hardships the victim endures in recovery. Often, a claim for damages can be filed against the insurance policy for the owner of the vehicle no matter who opened the door. 

There may be multiple parties who could have to contribute compensation to cover your medical bills and lost paychecks while missing work. Your bicycle accident attorney will determine who can be held accountable and aggressively pursue full compensation for you and your family.

If you are struck by a motorist while on an Electric Bike, the at-fault driver’s car insurance should pay for your recovery.

In the same way car insurance is used to support pedestrian accident victims and the medical costs of normal cyclists who have been hit, any motorist causing an accident should be accountable for all injury costs.

Some specialized insurance companies provide E-Bike insurance to riders who frequently ride rental bikes or bikes they own. These policies would usually cover you if you crashed your bike and got hurt in an accident not involving another vehicle. Policies may only cover the cost of repairs or a new bike and could fail to provide help with medical costs. An E-Bike policy might also provide coverage if you are hit by a driver who is uninsured or who doesn’t have enough insurance coverage. 

E-Bike insurance may also be available as an add-on to your own auto insurance policy. If you don’t have coverage through any of these means, your health insurance should provide a backup option to help pay your medical bills.

Generally, private E-Bike companies and public E-Bike rental services are protected from liability if you get hurt. However, if it can be proven a malfunction in the bike caused your crash, it’s possible to hold a bicycle provider responsible.

Personal injury cases involving bikeshares and E-Bikes can be complicated. It’s a good idea to take advantage of a free consultation with a skilled California Bicycle Accident Lawyer to go over your best options.