Motorcycles and Personal Injury Lawsuits

Motorcycles and traffic accidents seem to go hand-in-hand. Even though motorcycles represent just three percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads, they account for 14 percent of all accidents. In these accidents, motorcyclists face four times the injury risk and 28 times the fatality risk of automobile occupants.



A motorcycle accident can leave you with significant medical expenses and permanent disability that limits your ability to earn income. If someone caused or contributed to a personal injury you sustained while riding a motorcycle, take a look at the following frequently asked questions about motorcycles and personal injury lawsuits.

Why Do Motorcyclists Face Elevated Accident Risks?

As a motorcyclist, you may get special pleasure from the experience of feeling the wind on your face and the sun on your body. Unfortunately, that feeling of freedom comes at the price of minimal physical protection against injuries.

Cars and trucks encase their occupants in bodies specially designed to crumple on impact, absorbing shocks that might otherwise injure or kill individuals. Airbags and other state-of-the-art features add extra protection. By contrast, motorcycles leave their riders' bodies fully exposed to collisions and other impact-related damage.

Safety-conscious motorcyclists try to minimize their injury risk by wearing strong leather jackets, protective gloves, and helmets while also adding bright colors to their vehicles for greater visibility. While these measures may reduce the frequency and severity of accident injuries, they cannot always prevent them.

What Accident Injuries Most Commonly Affect Motorcyclists?

Road rash is a common kind of motorcycle accident injury. If you land on rough pavement, your skin can sustain mild to severe abrasions, with the worst cases producing muscle damage. Riders who try to break a fall with their hand or arm can suffer from limb fractures or permanent, debilitating nerve damage.

Head and spinal injuries are among the most serious kinds of motorcycle accident injuries. A traumatic brain or spinal cord injury can leave you with paralysis, brain damage, and chronic pain. Other potential dangers include pelvic or rib fractures, lung or heart damage, and severe burns from spilled gasoline.

What Should You Do After a Motorcycle Accident?

If you've experienced a motorcycle accident, you should tend to your personal well-being before doing anything else. Move to a safe place, but don't risk further injury by trying to move your motorcycle as well. Keep your helmet and other gear on so you don't run the risk of worsening your injuries by removing them.

You should summon emergency medical personnel and the police to the site of your accident. When the police arrive, answer all their questions as completely and accurately as possible. Take photos or video footage of every detail of the accident site, from the other vehicle's skid marks to your own injuries.

Eyewitnesses to the accident may provide useful testimony in a future personal injury lawsuit. Try to obtain as much contact information as you can from these individuals. You might even ask them to give you any dashboard camera video their cars may have recorded.

If you've sustained an injury, seek immediate medical evaluation and treatment. This crucial step will not only help you start on the path toward optimal healing, but it will also create a paper trail of evidence supporting the nature of your injury, the cost of treatment, and any limitations that interfere with your ability to work.

What Should You Know About Compensation?

As a no-fault state, Florida requires your insurance company to pay a portion of your medical expenses in a regular car accident. However, this is not the case in a motorcycle accident injury. This same compensation is not available to a motorcyclist. It is important you contact your insurance carrier to discuss additional, important and valuable coverages that are available to you, as a motorcyclist. These additional coverages will help protect you due to serious injury.

Florida law restricts its definition of serious injury to a relatively narrow scope. The four main categories that qualify include death, permanent scarring and significant disfigurement, a major loss of physical function, and injuries of a permanent, irreparable nature.

Your attorney can help you determine what kinds and amounts of compensation you should request. Compensation may include both obvious financial losses and less-tangible losses such as pain and suffering or loss of quality of life.

No matter how well your injury qualifies for a lawsuit, you may find yourself unable to pursue your claim if you wait too long to file it. Florida law gives most personal injury claimants up to four years to file a lawsuit. The sooner you engage a skilled attorney to help with this stage of the process, the better.

How Does Florida Law Determine Personal Injury Liability?

Florida employs the principle of comparative negligence in assigning liability for personal injury cases. For instance, if jury determines that you hold 20 percent of the liability in your accident for whatever reason, you can expect to receive only 80 percent of your claim if you win the case.

If a serious motorcycle accident injury has left you in dire financial straits due to someone else's negligence, get the professional legal counsel and representation you need from Jeeves Law Group. Our skilled team can evaluate your case and help you pursue much-needed compensation. Contact our office today.