Reliable Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers In Metairie, LA

Believe it or not, the most common type of accident, at nearly 60%, are single-vehicle accidents, where inattention, fatigue, or alcohol cause a driver to veer or drift off the road into an obstacle.

However, accidents between two different vehicles are also incredibly common, and fatalities are tragically so. The most common are usually collisions at traffic lights and stops, either read ends or side impacts, as someone hits a turning driver or runs a red light.

In many instances, these accidents will be primarily the fault of only one driver, which means if it causes an injury to the other, they are eligible for personal injury claim compensation.

In Louisiana, the driver, the cyclist, or both can be responsible for the accident, depending on the behavior that caused the crash. If either the driver or the rider was behaving in a negligent, unsafe, reckless, or illegal manner, they could be at fault for the accident.

That said, as the smaller vehicle that all too often goes unnoticed by car and truck drivers, bicycles are all too often overlooked and impacted or driven off the road by larger vehicles like cars.

Sometimes, accidents can occur without the car actually hitting the cyclist, but fault may still lie with the driver, who forced the rider to swerve or fall to avoid a collision.

There are three conditions, all of which must be true, for you to have a legitimate bicycle accident personal injury claim.

1. You must have been in a bicycle accident.
2. The bicycle accident was not primarily your fault.
3. You must have suffered one or more injuries in this bicycle accident.

All three conditions must be true. If you broke your femur riding your bike into a tree, you cannot make a claim if it was entirely your fault, but if a car drove you off the road into that tree, then you can make a claim against that driver or their insurance company.

The more severe the injuries, in terms of medical costs or disruptions to your day-to-day life, the higher the value of your bicycle claim will be.

How much compensation you receive will depend on three principal factors: how bad your injury was, how responsible you were for the accident, and how good your lawyer is.

The principal factor will always be the sum of all harm, losses, costs and general damages caused by your injury. These make up the bulk of your claim, but without a good lawyer, you might not realize half of them. Certainly, no insurance company is going to tell you.

If you have a strong claim, the insurance company is likely to offer you a fair and full settlement to avoid the cost of going to court. If not, you may have to take them to court.

In court, how much money you are awarded in compensation will be reduced by your share of the blame for the accident, so if you are 20% responsible, you only get 80% of the awarded damages.

Proving your claim requires demonstrating the injuries you suffered were caused by the accident, and that the accident was caused by the driver responsible.

As a result, gathering evidence from the scene of the accident can be vital. If you are in a state to do so, take pictures of your injuries, the vehicles involved, and the roadway/situation where the crash occurred.

Witness testimony can also be vital in proving your account of the accident, so take down the contact information of any willing witnesses, but also avoid saying anything to the other driver or their insurance company that might in any way indicate guilt.

Finally, seek immediate medical attention so that all doctor’s reports directly connect the injuries you have suffered to the bicycle accident that caused them, and then follow all procedures and instructions of your doctor.

Your attorney will gather all this evidence, collect any more they can, and use it to create a strong personal injury claim to ensure you get full and fair compensation.