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Your Bike Accident Claim: How to Determine Liability...
A
motorcycle or bike accident claim is immediately at a disadvantage in
insurance settlement negotiations.
Adjusters often have the same attitude many
other people have regarding this mode of transport...
"Motorcyclists are reckless and bicyclists
are careless."
So your bike accident claim is an uphill battle. Fortunately, there are
ways you can quickly turn that around.
First
of all, the rules of the
road apply to bikes the same as they
do to four-wheeled motor vehicles. This is especially true
for
motorbikes.
Bicycles are different because when the cyclist
can’t keep up with traffic, they must keep to the right side of the
road. If the road has a special bike lane, then the cyclist must stay
in that lane.
In a motor bike accident claim, one thing the rider
should do is present their own good and safe driving record to the
insurance company. If they can find witnesses to back up their
safe record, that will also help.
If applicable, they can
stress that they've been riding a long time, and that they ride often. The idea is to take away the
insurance company's ability to present the rider as reckless.
Aside from that, the motorcyclist will have to be much
more diligent in presenting a clear and effective argument against the
other driver.
A case of liability that's unique to motorcycle
and bike accident claims is something called lane splitting.
Normally this
happens when there's slow moving traffic and the cyclist decides to
ride between
two lanes of slower moving cars.
In a lane splitting situation the
cyclist is likely to be found at fault. Few states have laws against
this maneuver, but most all of them consider it an illegal action.
The
cyclist can argue that the driver who struck them was partially at
fault, but it's rare
that the other driver is shown to be completely at
fault.
The flip side of this scenario is when a bicyclist is
staying to the right of the road, per the law. They'll face obstacles,
like parked cars, that force them to move to the left into the traffic
lane, and that is allowed.
When the car driver behind the bike
doesn’t allow the cyclist to safely make this maneuver an accident
is likely to happen. If this occurs, the driver is the one being
negligent, just like in a rear end collision.
This comes back to the
idea that the cyclist
has just as much right to the road as the driver
of the car. In the next section we'll look at specific
rights a cyclist has, and
how this can effect an insurance claim.
Return from Bike Accident Claim to Lawsuit Settlements
Return from Bike Accident Claim to the Personal Injury Settlement Guide
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