Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Riverside, CA

Many Riverside residents use bicycles as a means of transportation or recreation. While our streets are safer than others, accidents still happen. When they do, you need the support of a bicycle accident lawyer in Riverside, CA to help you recover fair and appropriate compensation for your injuries. The Riverside personal injury lawyers from The Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas are here to help after a Riverside bicycle accident.

How Common Are Bicycle Accidents in California?

California is among the most bicycle-friendly states in the United States. According to our Bicycle Friendly State Report Card, we rank 19th in safety, with a rate of 11.2 fatalities per 10,000 bike commuters.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Traffic Safety Facts, there is a slight increase in national pedal cyclist fatalities from the previous year. Further, the rates of injuries reported increased by about 8% to hit nearly 50,000. However, reports from SafeTRECK suggest that California has seen a decrease in serious injuries and fatalities.

How Long Do I Have to File a Bicycle Accident Claim?

You may be uncertain of whether you want to pursue a lawsuit after a bicycle accident. While it is your prerogative to take time to decide how you want to proceed, you should be aware of how much time you take. In California courts, you typically have two years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit against the responsible party.

Two years may feel like a long time to decide, but you must take several steps before filing a lawsuit. In most cases, the courts will want to see that you have made good faith efforts to negotiate a settlement outside of court. This requires you to investigate the situation, undergo some amount of medical treatment to understand the full extent of your injuries, and spend time negotiating with the other party.

Why Choose the Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas After a Bike Accident

If you are considering a lawsuit for your injuries after a bicycle accident, it is often overwhelming to add law firm interviews to your growing list of things to address. When you go with the Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas, you know that you are represented by attorneys who have intimate knowledge of how to handle bicycle accident cases.

Our Team Has Decades of Legal Experience

Our founder, Fernando D. Vargas, began his career working with an insurance company. This gives him an intimate understanding of how insurance companies are likely to handle a case, including the tactics they often use to devalue your claim and what they pay out.

We Value Accessibility

We believe everyone deserves representation, regardless of financial status. For this reason, we often offer our services on a contingency basis. This means you will not owe us anything until we recover compensation, whether that is through a settlement or jury verdict.

Hablamos Español

We know that many Southern Californians are native Spanish speakers, and we are able to provide bilingual representation so you can avoid the hassle of an interpreter or missing information that may be otherwise lost in translation through a third party.

Personalized Strategy

Every case has a different context, different facts, and different needs. With our firm, you can trust that we will work directly with you from consultation to resolution to build an individualized argument that advocates for compensation appropriate to your specific injuries and needs.

Types of Bicycle Accident Cases We Handle

As a cyclist, you may find yourself injured in several ways. The type of accident you suffer can significantly affect your case. Some of the common types of bicycle accidents we see in Riverside include:

Right Hook: When a vehicle turning right collides with a bicycle traveling straight or turning left
Left Cross: A vehicle turning left collides with a cyclist travelling straight through an intersection
Sideswipe: When a vehicle strikes a cyclist from the side, often in violation of the Three Feet for Safety Act
Dooring: This occurs when a bicycle collides with a vehicle’s open or opening door
Rear-Ending: This occurs exactly the same as it does with vehicles. When the person behind you fails to stop in time, they may hit you from behind, which can cause significant damage to your bike and injury to you

In addition to collisions with other vehicles, some of our clients may end up injured in single-vehicle accidents. Examples of this may be when a rider collides with a stationary object due to unsafe road conditions or landscaping that obstructs visibility.

Liability in a Bicycle Accident

The type of accident you have can greatly impact who is determined to be liable. Riverside cyclists are required to follow the same traffic laws as vehicles when they are sharing the road. Therefore, determining liability often looks similar to or the same as it would in a more typical car accident.

In the examples above, when a cyclist collides with a moving vehicle, it is often determined that the rider or driver is liable. However, in circumstances where the accident was caused by other factors, you may find that a product manufacturer or municipality could be responsible for covering the costs of your losses.

We May Be Able to Help Even if You Are Partially Responsible

When it comes to apportioning liability, the state of California operates under a pure comparative negligence model. This allows you to recover compensation for your injuries unless you are 100% at fault. However, it is imperative to minimize the liability you incur, as it reduces the amount you can recover.

For example, if you were found to be 30% responsible for your accident, you are eligible to recover your damages minus that 30%. If the settlement amount or jury award is $10,000, you will walk away with $7,000. While the $10,000 is ideal, many people still find it to be a good use of their time if they collect $7,000.

Reducing and Protecting Yourself from Liability Is Integral to Maximizing Recovery

Regardless of whether you contributed to your injuries or hold any responsibility for the bicycle accident, the insurance company is likely to blame you to a degree. If you have some amount of valid liability, we want to keep that limited, and if you are completely innocent in your accident, you should not have to face any amount of responsibility for what the policyholder did. You can protect yourself by doing a few things:

Take pictures of the accident scene, the surrounding area, vehicles, your bicycle, and any injuries
Call 911 to create record of the accident, secure any necessary medical evaluation, and create a police report
Seek medical evaluation and treatment immediately
Avoid apologizing or saying anything that may seem to be an admission of guilt or responsibility
Do not sign any paperwork or provide recorded statements before speaking with a bicycle accident lawyer
If you speak with the insurance provider before consulting an attorney, avoid offering information they have not specifically requested. Keep your communication with them fact-based and concise
Avoid posting to social media or speaking too openly about your case

Whether you think you need a lawyer right away or not, it does not hurt to contact a bicycle accident attorney in Riverside County for a consultation. Worst case, you realize you’re good to go and do not need legal representation. Best case, you have secured early support that can prevent you from accidentally damaging your claim.

Establishing Negligence is the Key to a Successful Bicycle Accident Case

In any bicycle injury case, the key to success is establishing that the other party was negligent. At its most basic, negligence refers to someone’s failure to take reasonable care in their decisions and actions in the way that any other reasonable person would, given similar circumstances.

Duty of Care

As you might imagine, we must first define what a reasonable action is. This is known as the duty of care. For example, suppose you were riding near the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and Tyler Street, where multiple lanes and a lack of bike paths have made you vulnerable to someone who quickly gets over and tries to turn right, hitting you.

As a driver who shares the road with you, their duty of care is to follow traffic rules to keep pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers safe.

Breach of Duty

Next, we must show that the responsible party somehow breached their duty of care to you. When the driver failed to check their surroundings before changing lanes and turning, they violated that duty.

Causation

A violation without injury is not a personal injury case. Therefore, we must show that the other person’s violation of the established duty of care is the direct cause of your bicycle accident.

Damages

Like the need for a causal relationship, an accident that does not lead to injury or damage does not have grounds for compensation. The last step to a successful case is to show that they caused an accident that left you injured, and you are filing a lawsuit to recover those resulting losses.

Our Bike Accident Attorneys Will Help You Gather the Evidence Necessary to Win

Trying to gather and organize the appropriate evidence for your case can leave you feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what you need to do. The Riverside bicycle accident lawyers at The Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas will work on your behalf to investigate the situation, identify the necessary evidence, and collect it. Some of this may include:

Accident report
Repair shop quote
Medical bills
Witness testimony
Photos
Dashcam or security footage

It is our job to know of resources that many may overlook to get the evidence you need to maximize your recovery. Working with a firm familiar with Riverside means your bicycle attorney may know that a particular shop near your accident site has a security camera facing the scene. An accident attorney with The Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas will use all available resources to strengthen your case and help you get the outcome you deserve.

Common Injuries in Riverside Bicycle Accidents

Due to the size and weight difference of most bicycles and motor vehicles, the injuries we see can be significant. Some of those who commonly seek compensation suffer from injuries such as:

Broken bones
Facial injuries
Road rash
Spinal cord injury
Traumatic brain injury

These injuries can have lasting effects that require expensive, ongoing treatment. While some of them may resolve relatively quickly, others may need long-term hospital stays, surgical intervention, or even lifelong support. You should not have to face these physical, emotional, and financial costs alone.

You May Recover Compensation Based on a Variety of Factors

One of the benefits of a personal injury lawsuit is the ability to hold someone accountable in a public forum. This can be undeniably cathartic, but the primary goal of most cases is to recover monetary compensation for what you have lost. We formulate and make your request based on the damages you are eligible to claim. This is different in every case, but some of the more common damages include:

Medical bills
Lost wages
Disfigurement
Mental anguish
Pain and suffering
Loss of earning capacity

In the devastating event that you have lost a loved one in a bicycle accident, a family member may be eligible to file a wrongful death or survival action claim against the responsible party. These actions allow family members to recover compensation for their loss and suffering, or the decedent’s estate to recover damages for injury sustained from the accident, prior to death.

Contact an Experienced Bicycle Accident Lawyer in Riverside, CA

Whether you are facing long-term hospitalization or you are stuck on the couch for a few weeks with a broken bone, you should be taking that time to focus on your healing, not dealing with the stress of going back and forth with the insurance company.

When you contact our bicycle accident attorneys in Riverside, we will handle the heavy lifting by taking over communication with the appropriate parties and bringing you in when necessary. You can contact us online or by phone to schedule a free consultation and discuss your situation.