After a crash, insurance companies go all out to avoid taking responsibility for the incident. Insurance companies will try to shift the blame from their insured to you as they attempt to reduce their exposure to liability for an injury. They will try to claim that you are partly at fault for causing your motorcycle accident and you are a “reckless” biker. Fortunately, you can protect your legal rights by retaining a lawyer immediately.

Never believe an insurance company when they try to blame you for your crash. This is a common tactic they use against motorcyclists to avoid taking responsibility for your injuries and losses. You need a motorcycle accident attorney to fight against the insurance company, defense lawyers, and potentially liable parties that want to avoid responsibility for causing your injuries.

If you have suffered an injury in a motorcycle accident, contact a motorcycle  accident attorney in your area to learn more about your legal right to compensation.

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Potential Defendants in Motorcycle Claims

There can be many potential defendants in a motorcycle accident lawsuit. Consider the number of people motorcyclists share the road with; any of those drivers can cause an accident.

Examples include:

• Other motorists
• Bicyclists
• Bus drivers
• Auto part manufacturers
• City or state governments

Identifying and naming each potentially responsible party in a lawsuit is vital. Naming all potential defendants improves the likelihood of a full financial recovery at the end of a lawsuit.

Examples of Driver Negligence in a Motorcycle Accident

Motorists can act in many negligent ways that cause traffic accidents. Some drivers get behind the wheel and act in a way that puts others, including motorcyclists, in danger of suffering from a severe or fatal injury. Drivers act negligently in some of the following ways:

Distracted Driving

Distracted driving happens when a driver takes their attention away from driving. Three categories of distracted driving are visual, cognitive, and manual. Each type of distracted driving is negligent and can cause massive accidents.

Driving While Impaired

Driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol can lead to deadly traffic accidents. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 54 Americans die every day in an accident with an impaired driver.

Traffic Violations

When drivers fail to follow traffic laws, they endanger everyone who shares them.

Drivers should follow the traffic laws and avoid:

• Failing to yield the right-of-way to motorcycles.
• Speeding.
• Running red lights.
• Failing to watch for motorcycles as they merge onto the highway.
• Running stop signs.
• Unsafe passing/lane changes.

Types of Motorcycle Accidents Caused by Driver Negligence

Normal passenger vehicles outweigh motorcycles by several hundred pounds. Along with the difference in weight, motorcycles do not have the protection that passenger vehicles have. Because of these differences, when motorcycles get into accidents with other passenger vehicles, the motorcyclist faces a greater risk of a severe or fatal injury.

Examples of accidents that a negligent driver typically causes include:

Rear-End Collisions

Rear-end collisions usually happen when a driver is either following too closely to the motorist ahead of them or the driver is speeding and does not have enough time to stop before colliding with the motorist in front of them. If a motorcyclist is involved in a rear-end collision, they may be thrown from their bike and risk severe injuries.

Head-on Collisions

Head-on collisions severely impact motorcyclists. The size difference between the motorcyclists and the passenger vehicle can leave the biker with broken bones, head injuries, and even a fatal injury.

Sideswipe Accidents

A sideswipe accident happens when a driver travels too closely on either side of a motorcyclist and collides with the side of the vehicle. Sideswipe accidents are hazardous for motorcyclists because the other vehicle can hit them directly.

T-bone Accidents

A T-bone accident can be deadly to motorcyclists. These accidents generally happen when drivers run a red light or a stop sign. The driver may run into motorcyclists, or motorcyclists may make contact with the side of a driver’s vehicle. No matter how the accident happened, the motorcyclist is at greater risk for injury or death.

Proving Fault in a Motorcycle Accident

Proving fault is an essential part of every motorcycle accident lawsuit. It can be an uphill climb to prove that another driver caused the accident and should pay for your injuries. Drivers can negligently cause traffic crashes in various ways. Here are a few ways that motorcycle accident victims can prove fault include the following.

Where Can I Find Evidence of Who’s at Fault for a Motorcycle Accident?

Your attorney will want to help you prove that the accident was not your fault. Begin gathering evidence to prove your motorcycle accident claim immediately. Some examples of evidence that can help prove that someone else was at fault include:

Medical Evidence

Your medical record will have some of the most important evidence of your injuries. In some cases, the way in which you sustained your injuries may make it clear that the other driver was at fault. Make sure that your medical records are complete by following your doctor’s instructions. It is easier to show the extent of your harm and your need for ongoing treatment if you are compliant with your doctor’s wishes.

Organize your medical bills, too. Making your medical bills readily available can help your attorney calculate your ongoing financial losses related to the accident.

Expert Medical Testimony

Some motorcycle accident cases require the use of an expert medical witness. Expert medical witnesses are physicians that did not originally treat you for your injuries. They review your records and make findings about the cause of your injuries and the likelihood of a permanent effect the injuries may have on your life. Medical experts also bolster the connection between the accident and your injuries.

The Police Report

The responding police officer will create an accident report at the scene. In their report, the officer will make an initial determination regarding liability. Insurance companies will often use the narrative section of the police report to make a finding of fault. Neither the police report nor the insurance company’s findings are the final decision on fault.

Recovering Damages After A Motorcycle Crash

The types of compensation available in a motorcycle accident vary depending on the facts of your case. Generally, motorcyclists are legally entitled to financial compensation for their losses if they suffer an injury.

Types of compensation motorcyclists may recover if they suffered an injury in an accident can include:

• Current and future lost income.
• Current and future medical bills.
• Property damage.
• Pain and suffering/ mental and emotional trauma.

Current and Future Lost Income

If your injuries cause you to lose time at work or leave you unable to return to work, you may recover damages for lost income. Sometimes injured victims can return to work, but not at the same rate or in the same position. When that happens, injury victims can recover from lost earning capacity.

Current and Future Medical Bills

You can recover for your losses incurred from doctor’s visits, emergency medical services, surgeries, rehabilitative costs, medical equipment, etc. You should never settle your accident claim without accounting for future medical needs. Remember, once you settle your case, there is no going back to the negotiating table.

Property Damage

You can recover your property damage. If another driver’s negligence damages your motorcycle, they might be responsible for your losses.

Pain and Suffering/ Mental and Emotional Damage

These are intangible losses related to the accident. Because evidence of these losses is not immediately apparent, having an attorney experienced in arguing for the recovery of these kinds of losses is beneficial if you believe that you are entitled to pain and suffering or mental and emotional trauma damages.

What Should I Do After a Motorcycle Accident?

What you do after an accident is vital to your case. Consider taking the following steps after a motorcycle accident.

Check for Injuries and Call 911

After a crash, if you are able, call for emergency assistance. The police officer responding to your accident scene will compile a report.

Get to a hospital as soon as possible. Treating your injuries is vital for your physical well-being and your accident lawsuit. Contemporaneous medical care can help you connect the accident with causing your injuries, which is helpful to your motorcycle accident lawsuit.

Notify Your Insurance Company

While it is not a good idea to speak to an opposing insurance company without talking to your attorney first, your insurance policy may require you to report an accident as soon as it happens. Check the terms of your policy to ensure you are compliant.

Submit the Accident Report

Some states require motorists that were involved in an accident to submit the accident report to the Department of Motor Vehicles within a specified amount of time. Failure to submit the report may result in suspension or loss of your license. Speak to your attorney about these requirements.

Contact an Attorney

Contact an experienced motorcycle accident attorney as soon as possible after a crash. You should avoid speaking to the other driver’s insurance company before consulting a lawyer. Your attorney will help protect your legal rights to compensation after an accident.

How Can An Accident Attorney Help Me After A Crash?

Your accident attorney will work with you to ensure you have access to the maximum compensation available. They will assist you at each stage of the case. Here are some ways your attorney will help your case:

Negotiate on Your Behalf

You may get immediate settlement offers from insurance companies looking to settle a case quickly for cheap. Insurance companies take advantage of vulnerable accident victims. An attorney will help you avoid settlement offers that are not best for you or will not cover your losses or anticipated future losses.

Prepare Your Case for Trial

Your legal team will prepare your case for trial. Trial preparation is a lengthy process. Your attorney will want to speak with potential witnesses, insurance adjusters, police officers, and expert witnesses. They will want to examine your medical records and bills, analyze accident footage, and scrutinize photographs of your injuries and property damage. Most importantly, your legal team will want to prepare you to present your case to a jury in the most compelling light.

Answer Questions and Provide Legal Advice

Having an attorney helps you avoid getting lost in the maze of online legal research. If you have questions about your claim during the pendency of your case, you can ask your attorney. Relying on the experience of your attorney can help you avoid unnecessary stress and frustration that comes from scrolling the internet.

Protect You From Blame Shifting

The opposing side will do nearly anything to avoid paying your damages. Unrepresented accident victims often fall victim to accepting partial liability for causing the accident even when they are not to blame. Having an attorney helps accident victims avoid blame-shifting. Insurance companies have lawyers, so you need one too. Creating your legal team enables you to have an advocate continuously fighting on your behalf.

Contact an Attorney Today

You deserve the support of a qualified motorcycle accident attorney after a crash. Do not let big insurance companies intimidate defense lawyers. Having an attorney means you have an advocate with experience and legal experience who can help you gain access to the compensation you need.
Contact a personal injury lawyer today if you or a loved one has suffered an injury in a motorcycle accident.

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Motorcycle accidents have the potential to leave victims with extremely serious injuries. Those who survive might have catastrophic and disabling conditions for life.

Clearly, the potential for injury is higher on a bike, and many victims suffer life-changing injuries that prevent them from working or living independently. It should come as no surprise that many motorcycle accident victims and their families wonder how long it will take to get compensation.

People often have a million questions about the litigation process, including whether their case will go to trial or settle. While there is no timeline for how long settling a motorcycle accident claim with a motorcycle accident attorney will take or how long it will take to go to trial, consider the following factors to get an idea about the court process and what goes into resolving a motorcycle accident case.

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How a Motorcycle Lawsuit Begins?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicates that motorcyclist fatalities occur 28 times as often per mile traveled than passenger vehicle fatalities.

After those crashes, most motorcycle accidents begin their legal claims with negotiations with the insurance company. As for-profit businesses, insurance companies want to settle quickly and for cheap. It can be tempting to take the first offer in hopes of resolving your case quickly, but the first offer usually will not cover all your damages.

An accident attorney can help you avoid the mean tactics that insurance companies use to avoid paying settlements.

Common tactics include:

• Offering initial lowball settlements.
• Deliberately delaying responses.
• Calls and letters that pressure you to settle or lose your claim.
• Denying your injuries exist or claiming they are not as bad as you claim.

What Happens When I Accept a Settlement Offer?

Accepting a settlement offer ends your case. That is why getting money for your current damages and any future anticipated losses is critical. When you accept a settlement, you must sign a liability release. Generally, signing a release will prevent accident victims from filing another lawsuit against the defendant about the same accident.

A settlement release typically includes the dollar amount, other terms and conditions, and boilerplate language. You should always speak to an attorney before agreeing to settle your case and signing a liability release.

Settling your case is the fastest way to resolve it. However, you should always consider what full financial compensation looks like for you before ending your case.

What Happens If the Insurance Company Does Not Settle?

Your claim will continue to the trial if you and the insurance company cannot reach an agreement during settlement negotiations. The beginning of all civil trials is filing a complaint with the correct court. After this process begins, many steps are involved. Properly completing each of these procedural steps can affect how long it takes to resolve your motorcycle accident lawsuit.

Important Procedural Rules in Motorcycle Accident Lawsuits

Many procedural rules affect the validity of a motorcycle accident lawsuit. Perhaps the most important is the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations is a deadline law imposes for filing a lawsuit or settling an accident claim. The time you have for filing a lawsuit depends on your case type and the state where the accident happened. Your motorcycle accident attorney will be familiar with rules, including the statute of limitations and other procedural rules to ensure that you will not lose your case on technical grounds.

Filing a Complaint

A complaint is a legal document that states all your allegations plainly for the court. In your complaint, your attorney will plead for the damages you believe you are legally entitled to and ask that the court require the defendant or defendants to pay for the damages you allege.

The time a defendant has to answer your complaint depends on your state. Generally, a defendant has thirty to sixty days to file an answer to the complaint or risk having a default judgment entered.

Defendant’s Response to the Complaint

The law allows a defendant time to respond to a plaintiff’s complaint. Typically, a defendant will file a response called an answer. In their answer, the defendant will admit or deny each allegation in the complaint.

The rules of civil procedure also allow the defendant to file motions to resolve the case before filing an answer. For example, a defendant may file a motion for summary judgment before filing an answer. In a motion for summary judgment, a defendant will argue that there is no dispute of pertinent facts, and the court must dismiss the case.

The rules permit filing several other motions to resolve the case before the defendant submits an answer. The plaintiff must respond to these motions, and the court must set them for argument. These procedural matters often extend the time the case remains active.

Pretrial Matters

Each side must participate in a process called discovery. Discovery is the investigation phase of a trial. During discovery, each side will send and respond to a set of questions called interrogatories as well as requests for the production of documents. The discovery process can take a significant amount of time. The more defendants named in a lawsuit, the longer the discovery process will take to complete.

Motions from Your Side

Your attorney may find it appropriate to file motions during the pendency of your trial. As your team investigates the case, facts may present themselves that can get your case resolved with a motion. Getting a court date for your motion may take time, depending on the court’s calendar.

Trial

It can take years to actually get a case to the trial phase. Unfortunately, the longer it takes to get before a jury or judge, the longer it takes to resolve your accident lawsuit.

Reasons for court delays can include:

• The court’s calendar is full
• Counsel has scheduling conflicts
• Emergencies
• Scheduling expert witnesses who must appear at trial

Unfortunately, scheduling can be unpredictable. For example, a court may grant the opposing counsel’s motion to continue. You may be looking at a trial date that moves, and it is beyond your control.

Typical Injuries From Motorcycle Accidents

The time it takes to heal from your injuries affects the time it takes to resolve your case. It may not be a good idea to quickly resolve your claim before understanding the extent of your injuries. Some injuries do not present themselves for weeks or months after the accident.

Your attorney will help you understand a reasonable offer and the damages you can recover. Examples of common injuries that motorcyclists often sustain in traffic crashes include:

Traumatic Brain Injury

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is common in crashes involving motorcyclists. A sudden impact on the head can cause a severe brain injury, especially if the biker is not wearing a helmet at the time of the impact.

The symptoms of a TBI, or other brain injuries, can take time to manifest. The symptoms may progressively get worse. If that happens, you may develop a disability that keeps you from working. The overall value of your case will increase, and you may be entitled to greater compensation.

Road Rash

Road rash happens in motorcycle accidents more than in crashes involving other passenger vehicles. Road rash often occurs when a motorcyclist’s body comes into contact with the road and skids across the surface.

Spinal Cord Injuries

A spinal cord injury can leave a patient incapacitated and hospitalized for months. After a lengthy hospitalization, the patient may suffer from permanent disability. However, there is no way to predict the length of their disability without a doctor’s input. Motorcycle accident victims should carefully consider their doctor’s opinion about the long-term effects of their injuries.

Internal Injuries

You will not know if you have suffered an internal injury unless you get a physical examination. If left untreated, internal injuries can lead to disability. Accident victims should prioritize getting a physical examination after an accident.

Broken Bones

Because motorcycles do not have a vehicle body like cars or trucks, motorcyclists are vulnerable to sustaining broken bones in a traffic crash. Broken bones may take a significant amount of time to heal. You may not know how these injuries will affect you until they heal fully. The time it takes for broken bones to heal can affect the length of settlement negotiations or a lawsuit.

What Damages Can I Recover In a Motorcycle Case?

A motorcycle accident plaintiff can recover three major categories of damages. You may have losses that fall into either the economic or non-economic categories. In addition, in some cases, you might even recover punitive damages.

Economic Damages

Economic damages are physical and tangible. A specific dollar amount is usually attached to these losses; assigning them a monetary value is a relatively simple task.

Examples of economic damages include:

• Current and future medical bills
• Lost earning capacity
• Property damage
• Funeral and burial expenses in wrongful death claims

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are difficult to prove because they are non-physical and intangible. It can be challenging for a motorcycle accident victim to identify these losses and recover financially for them.

Despite being hard to show, non-economic damages are just as valid as economic damages. Accident victims deserve to recover tangible and intangible losses after a motorcycle accident.

Examples of non-economic damages include:

• Reduced quality of life – An accident victim can often recover compensation for their diminished quality of life. Suppose the accident causes you to experience a disability, disfigurement, or mental and emotional damage, and those losses cause your life to be negatively affected. In that case, you can recover compensation for that harm.
• Pain and suffering – Pain and suffering damage after a motorcycle accident refers to losses related to the inconvenience of being in the accident. Recovering compensation for pain and suffering usually requires a solid legal argument from an experienced litigator.
• Loss of consortium and companionship – Loss of consortium or companionship is a claim typically brought by an accident victim’s spouse. Depending on your state, your spouse may be entitled to losses that they suffered because of your injuries.

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages punish defendants and deter them from similar activities. The availability and amount of punitive damages depend on the court.

What If I Cannot Afford an Attorney?

Suppose you have a motorcycle accident claim but are concerned about the cost of legal representation. In that case, you can take advantage of a contingency fee payment arrangement to pursue your legal claim.

A contingency fee payment arrangement allows the client to defer payment of legal services until the end of a case. Generally, attorneys do not require payment unless there is a financial settlement. Attorneys usually receive a percentage of the settlement. The terms of the agreement must be in writing.

Call a Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Today

Contact an attorney today if you have suffered an injury in a motorcycle accident. The duration of a motorcycle accident lawsuit varies greatly depending on the complexity of the case, the parties involved, and the legal processes that unfold.

You should always work with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Tampa who can effectively navigate the legal system, advocate for your rights, and strive to expedite the process while pursuing maximum compensation.

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Boohoff Law, P.A. — Auto Accident Lawyers – Tampa Office

829 W Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd,
Tampa, FL 33603
Phone: (813) 725-5606