Mistakes To Avoid After a Bicycle Accident

Answer:

Having represented many injured cyclists, we begin to see a pattern of some mistakes that are often made right after the accident. Unfortunately, the most common one is to get up, brush it off, and go home. For more minor bicycle accident injuries, sometimes people aren’t aware of the injuries that they sustained inside. Sometimes they’re even embarrassed. It’s critically important that you see medical assistance right away. You need to get evaluated. We don’t know what we don’t know until a doctor has made that evaluation. One of the most common mistakes we see if people brushing it off and saying let me ice it off, let me put a heat pad when I get home.

Now, for your more severe injury cases, which unfortunately, bicycle accidents tend to be extremely severe. A common mistake is to not gather as much information as possible. A lack of information creates a fog of war where the defendant can claim that you were crossing the road, or they had the right of way. There’s any number of defenses that they can bring up after the fact but if a cyclist is armed with facts from the moment of the incident, it makes things a lot easier. The best thing to do, if possible, is to take photographs, take videos, if there’s any witnesses, get their names, get their numbers, record as much as possible right at the scene of the accident. Again, bicycle accidents tend to be devastating. A lot of times, an ambulance is rushed in and the cyclist is rushed out but there still are things that can be done.

Now, another common mistake is to say something that might damage your case. Maybe speaking with an insurance company or admitting liability or anything along those lines that could damage your case long-term. Again, if you’re involved in an accident as a cyclist, it’s critically important that you contact us right away. We are experienced attorneys specifically of handling bicycle accident. Please reach out to the Victory law firm right away.

Sometimes clients call and tell us they were injured in an accident due to somebody else’s fault; either they forgot, they were in a hurry, or some people are just opposed to it still. What we tell those clients is you are able to receive compensation for injuries sustained in that car accident as long as the seat belt would not have prevented them. For example, if you’re struck from the side and you break your arm against the door, you have a valid claim for that injury. However, if by wearing a seat belt you would not have struck your head on the steering wheel, for example, then you are not protected. It’s called the seat belt defense. What would happen is, although we would claim all of the injuries that were caused by the accident, the defendants are allowed to assert as a defense that because you weren’t wearing a seat belt those injuries should be either precluded or diminished because of your failure to wear that device.