Important First Steps After the Accident
Your body and your physical health are more important than anything following the accident. If you are knocked unconscious, odds are you will be taken in an ambulance to the emergency room. If you are conscious, but feel like you are too injured to move or to do anything at the scene, you should also get on the ambulance.
If you are injured but not in life-threatening danger, you should take some time to collect evidence before you get your injuries checked out. For those who are unable to, you can have a friend, family member, or attorney do this part for you. Photos and videos need to be taken of any physical evidence of the scene. That includes your bike, the other car, any debris in the street, the tire marks, a general overview video of the whole area, etc. Anything you think is important probably is. You also want contact info from witnesses as well as the insurance info from the driver who hit you.
Frequently Asked Bicycle Accident Questions
One of the most popular sports in Southern Utah is mountain biking. If you’ve been injured in a bicycle accident, it’s important for you to hire the right attorney. You may be asking, “How do I do that?” One, find an attorney who’s got the experience in dealing with bicycle crashes. Second, get somebody who focuses on that area, and doesn’t just dabble in it. Third, get a trial attorney. They’re difficult cases and you have to prepare them from the beginning as if you were going to have to go to trial, and let an insurance company know that you’re willing to go to trial, if that’s what you need to do.
If you’ve been hit on your bicycle in the state of Utah, you’re probably going to get a call from the insurance company for the driver of the car that hit you, and they’re going to want to take your recorded statement. I recommend that you not give them a recorded statement without talking to an attorney first. The insurance companies train their adjusters to get the information that they need to help their case and hurt your case. They try to do that right at the beginning of a case and use it against you.
If you have been injured on a bicycle in the state of Utah, there are a few differences that you need to understand that are different from when you’re injured in a vehicle. First off, bicycles typically don’t carry the same type of liability insurance that you would have if you were riding in a vehicle. Second, the injuries are typically more extensive. If you have been injured on a bicycle, we suggest that you get medical care immediately to help you understand what your injuries are and how to make a full, physical recovery. Third, we recommend that you hire an experienced bicycle attorney who understands how the different insurances interact with each other, and preferably a trial attorney who has a reputation and is known for taking cases to trial and to a jury verdict.
Whether or not your child has a claim for being injured while at school depends on a number of factors. First, it’s important to understand that being injured at school does not automatically create a claim for your child. It’s the same analysis that occurs in other types of injuries where you need to look at the facts and see if the school created or didn’t prevent a hazard that injured your child. It’s important to come in and talk to an attorney to look at the different factors involved and see if your child does have a claim.
A lot of people wonder, after they’ve been injured in a bicycle crash, “What if I am partially at fault?” We have these conversations with people and explain to them that you still can make a recovery, even if you were partially at fault. In Utah, you can bear some of the responsibility and some of that fault and still make a recovery against an insurance carrier.
If you have been injured in a bicycle crash in the state of Utah and you believe that you have some of the responsibility in the collision, it is still possible that you can make a claim for your damages and your injuries. In the state of Utah, an injured party can make a claim for their damages as long as the injured individual is less than 50% responsible for the collision.
If you’re riding a bicycle and you happen to be injured by a pothole or poorly maintained road, you may have a claim. It may also have a shorter time period to bring that claim because it’s against the city, state, or county, and you still have to prove that they did something wrong and that they were at fault.
If you’ve been injured in a bicycle crash, you may be wondering, “How much is my case worth? If you contact us early on, that’s a very difficult thing for us to answer. Part of the reason for that is because we need to see what happens with your treatment. We need to see if the medical treatment that you get helps you, if it gets you back to work, and gets you back to doing the things you love to do. All of those things have to go into it to deciding what the value of the case is.