May 25, 2020
Bicycle Accidents Rise During COVID-19 Pandemic
It may not surprise you to know that bike sales in San Diego are reporting all-time high sales during the COVID-19 pandemic as people look for ways to get out and enjoy the fresh air and wonderful weather that our great city has to offer while staying safe and socially distant at the same time. Bicycles are great methods of transportation, healthy exercise alternatives to our closed gyms, and can help you see our city in a way that you never would be able to in a car. All in all, more bikes and fewer cars is one of the nicer impacts of this terrible pandemic, but there is an unfortunate reality to this rise: bike accidents are also increasing.
There are a few different possible reasons for this increase in cycling accidents, all of which are likely contributors, including inexperienced cyclists, and more bikes that drivers must be aware of as they are in their cars. All too often, a driver who is looking at their phone, fiddling with their GPS, or talking on the phone can get distracted and take a right turn directly into a biker who is lawfully using the road, open a door into a cyclist, or take a left turn across an intersection into an oncoming rider.
Call Now for a Free Initial Consultation With a Bike Accident Lawyer in San Diego
If you have been hurt in a bike accident that someone else caused, then you have a right to compensation for your injuries. As a responsible cyclist, there is only so much that you can do to avoid reckless or negligent drivers, and in the event that you are hurt by one of these irresponsible vehicle operators, the team at Injury Trial Lawyers is here to help you fight for a fair settlement.
Read more below to get a general sense of bike accidents in San Diego and how we can help, and contact us as soon as possible to start the process. The sooner we are able to begin working together, the more time we will have to build a strong case for compensation that adequately covers your losses after this unfortunate, avoidable accident.
Who Is At Fault For Bicycle Accidents?
One of the most important questions that must be answered early into a bike accident insurance claim is that of who caused the accident. In California, fault impacts your final settlement through something called “pure comparative negligence,” which will determine your level of fault in the accident, and then reduce your final award by that percentage. While this structure is extremely helpful, since the alternative is to block victims from seeking ANY compensation if they were even 1% at fault, it is also a useful tool for insurance companies who are looking to save money.
In order to determine fault in a bicycle accident, it can often come down to your word against the driver’s word. However, there are many other options that we will explore, such as eyewitness accounts, police reports, surveillance videos, and other third-party recountings of the crash so that we can establish the truth. Ideally, the driver is forthcoming about what caused the accident, but unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Determining Compensation After a Bicycle Accident
Once we have established fault in the accident, the next step is to determine the amount of money that you deserve as a victim. First, we will examine all of your medical-related impacts and costs, such as treatment costs, visits to the doctor’s office, prescriptions, assistive devices, and more. In addition to your treatment-related costs, we will also calculate any impacts to your income, such as missed days of work, PTO and sick leave that you cashed in, and any overall decreases to your earning capacity as a result of your injuries. These are all known as “economic damages,” and there are many more that should rightfully be included as well.
Once we have established your economic damages as a baseline, we will then move into “non-economic damages,” which are more complicated to calculate, simply for the fact that they seek compensation for impacts that do not have measurable dollar values. They include things like the actual pain and suffering that you must endure from your injuries, as well as emotional impacts like depression and trauma. Insurance companies are more aggressive about pushing back on these types of damages, but we will fight to get you what you deserve.