Harlow County
Motorcycle Accident Lawyer.
In states that offer limited tort, the election is usually written around the private passenger car, so a rider often keeps full tort rights, and many states do not require a medical benefit on a motorcycle policy at all.
What Are Riders Told That Is Not In The Statute?
Three things get repeated to riders after a crash, usually by somebody who means well. The statute text behind each one is printed at the foot of this page.
Limited tort applies to you the same way
What riders get toldAn individual otherwise bound by the limited tort election keeps full tort rights if injured while an occupant of a motor vehicle other than a private passenger motor vehicle, and the statute defines a private passenger motor vehicle as a four wheel motor vehicle.
Your motorcycle policy pays your medical bills first
What riders get toldThe section that forces a medical benefit onto every auto policy names an exception for motorcycles, motor driven cycles and motorized pedalcycles, so whether a rider has that coverage depends on what the rider bought, not on what the law requires.
No helmet means no claim
What riders get toldThe helmet section sets who must wear one and exempts a rider of 21 or older who has held a motorcycle license for two full calendar years or completed an approved rider safety course. It says nothing about what a helmet does to a civil claim. The pedalcycle section next door does say so, in as many words, which is how you know the silence is deliberate.
Why Do Insurers Blame The Rider By Default?
Because there is usually nobody to contradict them, and because the physics of the crash puts the rider on the ground and the driver behind glass.
The driver gives a statement at the scene. The rider is often in an ambulance. By the time anyone asks the rider what happened, a version of the crash already exists, and the most common sentence in it is that the driver never saw the motorcycle. That sentence is an admission about the driver's attention, not a defense, but it tends to get written down as though it settles something.
Many states do not treat shared fault as the end of a claim. Contributory negligence does not bar a recovery where the injured person's negligence was not greater than the causal negligence of the defendants, and the damages are reduced in proportion to the share attributed to the injured person. Which means the argument about who did what is an argument about how much, not about whether, and it is worth having properly.
The office's own account of what the firm does with a motorcycle file: review the case, investigate the evidence about what caused the crash, and interview witnesses where that is needed. The firm will visit you at home or in the hospital in Harlow County, the neighboring counties, North Ridley or just over the county line.
How Long Does A Rider Have?
The deadlines are the same as any other injury claim. The evidence window is shorter, because a motorcycle gets moved and repaired faster than a car.
Two years
Six months notice
Minority is not counted
Keep all of it
What If The Driver Says They Never Saw Me?
The usual lineThen the question becomes what there was to see and from where. Sight lines, the position of the bike in the lane, the light, the signal phase and any camera on the corner all speak to that, and all of them are easier to establish in the first fortnight than in the second year. Say nothing on tape until somebody has read the report with you.
What Should Be Kept After A Motorcycle Crash?
A motorcycle is small enough to be towed, repaired or written off inside a week, and every one of those steps removes something.
- The motorcycle itself, unrepaired, including the parts that came off it
- The helmet, the jacket, the gloves and the boots, unwashed and unmended
- Photographs of the lane position, the debris field and the skid marks
- The police report number and the name of the officer who wrote it
- The name and number of anybody who stopped, not only the named witnesses
- Your own declarations page, so somebody can see what coverage you actually bought
- Occupants of other vehiclesLimited tort often does not follow a person who is hurt while riding in a vehicle that is not a private car.
- Vehicle definitionsInsurance rules usually define the vehicles they reach, and motorcycles and commercial vehicles are often outside the definition.
- Required medical benefitStates that require a medical benefit on auto policies set a minimum amount and often exempt motorcycles from it.
- Motorcycle helmetsHelmet rules differ widely between states, and many exempt experienced adult riders.
- Comparative negligenceWhere the injured person shares the blame, many states reduce the award by that share rather than barring it, up to a limit the state sets.
Questions From Riders.
The ones that come up on the first call, answered the way the office answers them.
The statute says an individual otherwise bound by the limited tort election retains full tort rights if injured while an occupant of a motor vehicle other than a private passenger motor vehicle, and a private passenger motor vehicle is defined as a four wheel one. Bring the declarations page and have someone read it with you.
That is the question to ask first, because many states do not require that coverage on a motorcycle policy. Depending on the household's policies and the other vehicle involved, the answer may be a car policy in your household, a health plan, or the driver's insurer at the end of the claim.
Yes. The helmet section sets who must wear one and who is exempt, and it says nothing about civil claims. What not wearing one does to a particular file is argued under the comparative negligence rule where you were hurt, not decided by that section.
Call before you authorize anything. Once the motorcycle is repaired, sold for salvage or crushed, the physical evidence about the crash goes with it, and that is usually the fastest clock in a rider's case.
Yes. In most states an injury lawsuit has to be started within a set time, often two years of the crash. That is the outside limit, not the working deadline.