As you ride your bike on a sunny day, you feel as though you do not have a care in the world. However, this quickly changes when a car strikes you from behind, leaving you with serious injuries.
Bike collisions in Texas can quickly lead to incapacitating injuries, as a bicyclist has no barrier to protect himself or herself from the impact of a motor vehicle. Fortunately, if your bike crash was the result of a careless car driver, you have the right to seek justice.
Driver negligence
Both drivers and bicyclists have an obligation to follow Texas’ road rules. This includes following traffic laws in addition to exercising reasonable care when it comes to keeping yourself safe as well as others safe.
If a car driver is careless — for example, by texting while behind the wheel or by driving too quickly for road conditions — and hits your bike as a result, you may seek to recover monetary damages for the injuries you suffer. Other examples of negligence on the part of a car driver include blowing through a stop sign or going into a bicyclist lane due to driving while distracted.
Cyclist negligence
In some accident situations, the cyclist contributed to the accident and thus was partially responsible for his or her injuries. In this case, if you do end up receiving monetary compensation because the car driver was negligent, too, the judge may reduce your award according to how much you contributed to the accident. This concept is known as comparative or contributory negligence.
Monetary compensation
Suffering injuries in a bike accident can be emotionally, financially and physically troublesome. Unfortunately, you may find yourself unable to go to work for a lengthy period of time because you have to recover from your serious injuries. The inability to work, coupled with mounting medical bills, may lead to what feels like a financial avalanche for which you were unprepared. The combination of the financial difficulty and physical challenges resulting from the accident may, in turn, take a toll on your emotional and mental state as well.
However, a monetary award may help you to address your medical costs as well as pain and suffering and emotional distress resulting from the bike crash. It cannot undo the events leading to the life-altering accident, but it may help you to more easily rebound from it.