Handling Bicycle Accidents Caused By Negligent Drivers in Texas
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the year 2015, there were more than 1,000 bicyclists who died, and there were almost 467,000 bicycle-related injuries nationwide. Some victims were young children. As an injured person or the parent or spouse of a victim, you know there are few things that would hurt more than someone physically harming your loved one. When your loved one is hit on a bike by a negligent driver, you want to do everything in your power to take the pain away. However, all you can do is support the victim during his or her recuperation period. You also have the right to hire a Texas personal injury lawyer and to seek compensation for the medical bills and other damages related to the injury claim. In a bike accident case, you must prove that the defendant was at fault and seek an insurance settlement or a jury verdict. In some cases, victims may be able to seek damages from their own car insurance policy.
Bicycle Accidents Cause Serious Harm to Adults and Kids
When a bicyclist is riding a bike, he or she may be wearing a helmet and other protective gear like knee pads and elbow pads. This equipment helps to offset the damage resulting from minor falls from a bike. When a car, truck, or larger vehicle hits a bike rider, the difference in size is huge. The child or adult’s impact on the ground may be much more severe, even fatal. Such accidents produce serious injuries, including scarring, disfigurement, loss of limbs, loss of bodily functions, serious brain injury, paralysis, and impaired intellectual ability. An accident victim may never be the same after an accident, and he or she deserves to seek recovery for medical bills — past, present, and future — and future expenses. If there is a permanent disability that will impact his or her total quality of life, this should be factored into the potential award. Parents have the right to pursue the tort claim on their minor child’s behalf. All accident victims can consult a lawyer to understand their rights and to obtain assistance with handling those aggressive insurance companies that don’t want to pay their claim.
Why Should I Hire a Lawyer?
You or your loved one have suffered needlessly, and now the medical bills are adding up. You are tired of getting phone calls from unpaid medical providers. You are tired of having to explain to everyone why the injured person isn’t feeling the same since the crash. A bicycle accident can permanently alter a victim’s life. While some victims bounce back and make miraculous recoveries from their serious injuries, others are permanently damaged. Texas personal injury lawyers help victims and their families seek justice because they were hurt by a bad driver, which includes collecting medical evidence and preparing it to demand a settlement from the defendant’s insurance company. You could hire a lawyer if you don’t understand how to prepare an injury claim and get the defendant’s insurance company to take this claim seriously.
Don’t Represent Yourself!
If you try to settle a personal injury matter alone, the at-fault insurance company may offer only pennies on the dollar, which will not benefit you or your loved one’s financial future. Sadly, some accident victims face a lifetime of medical bills because of a single crash.
What is Our Experience With Bicycle Accident Claims?
As a firm that handles personal injury cases, we are here to answer your legal questions. With offices in Bayou City, we’ve helped many injured bicycle riders. While we cannot provide any guarantee a victim will recover money from the defendant in the crash, we will use our collective resources to fight aggressively on each client’s behalf. When we investigate the accident, we determine who was at fault and if there are insurance policies which apply to the case.
How Do I Recover Damages for the Crash?
In Texas, each injured victim only has 2 years to pursue a claim against the negligent driver in their bicycle accident case. Don’t postpone hiring a lawyer. The consequence could be that important evidence is lost, and it is harder to prove that your injuries resulted from the carelessness of the driver. Some cases will quickly show that the defendant driver had little or no insurance, which may cause the parents to pursue a settlement from their own uninsured motorist coverage. If a personal injury case includes a lawsuit against an insurance company, the entire process can drag on for years. In a typical case, these are some types of damages that an injured person may seek related to his or her injuries:
- Medical bills.
- Future reduced earnings.
- Prescription expenses.
- Pain and suffering.
- Legal fees and costs.
Punitive damages (i.e. awarded when the jury believes the defendant or his or her insurance company committed gross negligence or acted in bad faith.)
Who Bears Responsibility for a Bicycle Crash?
When a victim is hurt on a bike, he or she is immediately taken to the hospital. There may be circumstances in which the victim contributed to the accident, but this requires investigation by an experienced legal team. The accident report, if there is one, is just one piece of evidence that helps to establish who was at fault in the crash. It’s important to understand that personal injury claims are based on the defendant behaving in a negligent manner. It’s possible to hold the defendant responsible for hurting you or your loved one, but Seeking damages will not restore the victim to his or her health condition before this catastrophe.
However, you can fight for your legal rights under the law. If we take your case, we will determine who is at fault and argue for damages that should never have occurred if the driver had behaved in a reasonable manner.
How Do I Pay a Bicycle Accident Lawyer?
Victims of bicycle accidents may not have the financial capacity to pay a lawyer up front for civil representation. If you cannot pay out of pocket, you still have the right to seek relief. Most law firms use a contingency fee arrangement to assist their clients with personal injury claims. This means that the attorney recovers his or her legal fees and costs by deducting them from any jury verdict or insurance settlement obtained for the injured party.
When searching for a personal injury attorney, you should seek a practitioner with past trial experience and take advantage of a free consultation to understand your legal rights.
