You need a lawyer after suffering road rash in a bicycle accident because it gives you the strongest chance of recovering compensation to pay for your medical expenses, financial losses, pain, and suffering. A lawyer can handle all aspects of dealing with insurance and pursuing lawsuits on your behalf. And a lawyer can serve as your trusted advisor and ally during this difficult time of your life.
Road rash can cause severe, debilitating, expensive injuries for which you deserve to receive significant payment.
Here’s a review of the many reasons to hire a lawyer after you suffer road rash in a bike accident, and why you should contact one immediately. Reach out to a bicycle accident lawyer.
A Lawyer Can Investigate Liability for Your Bicycle Accident
A lawyer’s primary job is to get you compensation for the road rash and other injuries you suffered in a bicycle accident. The first step involves investigating what happened and who is to blame. Bike accident lawyers dig into the evidence to determine the cause of your crash and who owes you damages.
In general, anyone whose careless or reckless conduct led to your bike crash or road rash injury could have liability for your damages. Other parties could also have liability if they have a legal duty to answer for an at-fault party’s conduct. Multiple individuals, businesses, or entities might share liability for your damages, or just one party might owe you compensation.
Drivers of cars, trucks, and buses frequently bear liability for a bike accident resulting in road rash. That’s because they often fail to share the road appropriately with cyclists, resulting in collisions that throw riders to the ground.
For example, drivers commonly cause road rash bike accidents by:
- Getting distracted behind the wheel and drifting into a cyclist’s path.
- Failing to yield to bicycles as they would to a motor vehicle, despite traffic laws requiring that they do so.
- Disregarding, cutting across, or parking in bike lanes and other areas of the road designated for bicycle travel.
- Passing bicycles too fast or close.
- Tailgating or harassing cyclists.
- Opening vehicle doors into the path of bicyclists.
But drivers aren’t the only parties who might face liability for your road rash injuries. By investigating the circumstances of your accident, a lawyer may identify others whose actions or legal obligations require them to pay for your losses. For example:
- The employer of a driver who caused your crash while driving a work vehicle;
- The manufacturer of a motor vehicle or your bike, if defective equipment played a role in causing the crash; or
- A government entity or private road owner responsible for unreasonably dangerous road conditions that endangered you.
Liable parties frequently carry insurance or have assets to pay your damages. By aiming to identify as many of them as possible, a lawyer maximizes your likelihood of receiving compensation.
A Lawyer Can Evaluate Your Road Rash-Related Damages
As the victim of a bike accident, you have the right to seek compensation for the full scope of harm you’ve suffered. That includes the many ways that your road rash injury has impacted your life physically, emotionally, and financially. An experienced lawyer evaluates your damages to determine the amount you can justifiably claim as the compensation due from at-fault parties and insurance companies. Here are several categories of damages a skilled lawyer can typically seek on your behalf.
Medical Expenses
As a friction burn, road rash can require extensive medical treatment. You have the right to receive compensation for the cost of caring for your road rash injury, other injuries, and any health complications they cause. That includes emergency care, hospitalization, surgery, rehabilitation, physical therapy, medication, and medical equipment expenses. A lawyer can review the medical expenses you’ve already incurred and, if necessary, work with an expert to estimate the future costs you face. The goal is to ensure you have enough money to cover the entire financial burden of caring for your injuries, even if you need treatment for the rest of your life.
Lost Income
Road rash can prevent you from working temporarily or permanently. Even minor road rash can keep you out of work for several days while you heal. A severe wound may inflict long-term disabilities (after requiring significant hospitalization and surgery).
For example, you may need to avoid exposing the wound to heat or cold during the initial recovery period, making working in settings like commercial kitchens or outdoor jobs challenging. Depending on where on your body you suffered road rash, your injury can also interfere with mobility and dexterity and prevent you from performing ordinary job tasks like lifting and sitting.
You have the right to receive compensation for your lost income, the job benefits you did not accrue, and the paid time off you used while healing from your road rash injury. You also have the right to claim payment for your injury’s impact on future job prospects and earning opportunities. An experienced lawyer can evaluate the income and benefits losses you suffered and work to ensure you receive fair compensation for them.
Pain and Suffering
Road rash can cause considerable physical discomfort and emotional distress, inflicting profound disruptions in your life. Road rash victims frequently limit their activities because of the physical or emotional trauma of their wounds. They also struggle with the effects of scarring and disfigurement caused by road rash.
You deserve compensation for these impacts — known generally as pain and suffering — no less than your financial losses. Skilled bicycle accident lawyers work hard to understand the full scope of non-financial harm road rash causes. The compensation for pain and suffering often constitutes at least half (if not more) of the damages you can receive.
A Lawyer Can Collect Evidence to Support Your Claim
You cannot receive compensation for your road rash unless you have evidence to prove in court, if necessary, that someone is liable to you and that you suffered damages. A lawyer knows where to look for and how to collect that evidence.
The evidence needed to support your claim for damages can take many forms.
For example, a lawyer may collect and review:
- Witness statements that give firsthand accounts of the accident and it happened.
- Video footage and still images from nearby security cameras, dash cameras, or witness’s phones that capture the accident and scene.
- A police accident report detailing facts gathered by first responders at the accident scene.
- Medical records reflecting the scope of your road rash injuries and treatments.
- Bills, invoices, receipts, and other documentation of your accident-related expenses and financial losses.
The sooner a lawyer can get to work on your behalf, the better the chances of gathering evidence helpful to your case. Waiting to contact a lawyer risks losing the opportunity to preserve critical evidence before it gets lost or fades from witnesses’ memory.
A Lawyer Can Deal With Insurance For You
A bicycle accident can trigger coverage under multiple insurance policies, including yours and the at-fault driver’s. But having a valid claim doesn’t mean insurance companies will automatically pay you what they owe.
Obtaining compensation often requires proving in detail how the accident happened, who was to blame, and the amount of your losses. And even then, an insurance company will often try to poke holes in your claim or look for ways to justify paying you less than you deserve.
An experienced bicycle accident lawyer knows all the tricks and tactics insurance companies deploy to avoid paying you fair compensation. By handling all insurance matters on your behalf, the lawyer can protect your interests and take the necessary steps to force insurers to cover your losses to the maximum extent possible. As an added benefit, entrusting insurance matters to your lawyer relieves you of the stress and burden of fielding phone calls from aggressive insurance adjusters. Once you have a lawyer, the phone calls will stop.
A lawyer can also negotiate settlements with insurers on your behalf and advise you about whether to accept or reject their settlement offers. Insurance companies notoriously attempt to convince you to take lowball settlement amounts. A lawyer who has evaluated your road rash injury claim will not fall for those tactics and can tell you whether an offer reflects the actual value of your case.
A Lawyer Can Litigate Your Claim in Court
Getting you the money you deserve for your road rash injury may require filing a lawsuit against a liable party or insurance company. Litigation involves following detailed court procedures for investigating, arguing, and presenting your case. Hiring a skilled lawyer with a demonstrated track record of results in lawsuits gives you the most favorable shot at winning a lawsuit or using it as leverage to obtain a top-dollar settlement.
Filing a lawsuit doesn’t necessarily mean your case will end up in a trial. Most bike accident cases settle long before they see the inside of a courtroom. But it’s not always easy to tell which cases will settle and which will defy the odds and go in front of a judge and jury. That’s why it’s critical to find a lawyer with extensive experience settling cases and winning them in court.
A Lawyer Can Guide You Through a Difficult Time
The period after suffering a road rash injury in a bicycle accident can feel overwhelming for you and your loved ones. You might feel confused about where to turn for help or who to trust to give sound advice.
A seasoned bicycle accident lawyer has guided many clients through the same difficult times you now face and can be your trusted counselor, sounding board, and advocate. Many bike crash victims find the personal advice and guidance from a lawyer to be just as valuable as the financial recovery a lawyer can secure.
You Can Afford a Road Rash Injury Lawyer
Injured cyclists and their loved ones sometimes hesitate to call a lawyer because they worry about the cost. But that shouldn’t be a concern for you.
A road rash injury lawyer will meet with you at your convenience to give you a free case evaluation. And if the lawyer takes your case, they’ll almost certainly do so on a contingent fee basis. That means you won’t have to pay a penny upfront for the lawyer’s services. Nor will the lawyer bill you by the hour. Instead, the lawyer’s fee will only consist of a percentage of the money recovered on your behalf. You pay nothing unless the lawyer gets you results.
Why to Hire a Road Rash Lawyer Immediately
Now is the best time to hire a bike accident lawyer for your road rash injury case. You gain nothing by waiting to retain an attorney. Delay can only hurt your case by making evidence more difficult to obtain, risking the expiration of legal deadlines that affect your rights, and increasing the odds that defense lawyers and insurance companies will doubt the seriousness of your claim. And if you wait too long to talk to a skilled attorney, you could lose your ability to claim compensation altogether.
Contact a Bike Accident Lawyer for Your Road Rash Injury Claim
Andrew Finkelstein personal injury lawyer in New York
Lawyers offer a slew of benefits to bicycle accident victims like you. They handle every aspect of seeking compensation from at-fault parties and insurance companies. They advise you and guide you through a difficult moment in your life. And they work without requiring a penny of upfront payment. What’s not to like?
If you or someone you love recently suffered a road rash injury in a bicycle crash, don’t hesitate to get the legal help you need. The sooner you have a seasoned legal professional working for you, the better your chances of obtaining compensation for your losses. Contact an experienced road rash bicycle accident lawyer today for your free case evaluation. Reach out to a personal injury lawyer.