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Motorcycle Crashes

Motorcycle Accident Suits Are Not Car Accident Suits

It may seem starnge to hear that there are important differences between Illinois motorcycle accident suits and Illinois car accident suits. After all, aren’t motorcycle accidents just another form of motor vehicle accident? It is true that motorcycles are covered by many of the same provisions of the Illinois Motor Vehicle Code that cars are, and the same basic rules of the road apply to cars and motorcycles alike. But, if you think that a motorcycle accident suit is just another kind of car accident suit, think again…

• Many people who are not motorcycle riders unfairly regard riders as being daredevils, which puts motorcyclists at a disadvantage coming into court. Sadly, there are some motorcyclists who perpetuate that image by weaving in and out of heavy traffic at speeds well in excess of the speed limit. Those are the guys that jurors see in their mind’s eye when they hear that the case involves a motorcyclist injured in an accident. An experienced Illinois motorcycle accident lawyer knows how to bring out those attitudes during jury selection, to have those people eliminated from the jury, if possible, and to try to dispel those attitudes during the presentation of the case by showing what the injured rider did to learn how to ride safely, follow safe riding practices, and avoid the accident at issue in the lawsuit.
• Jurors who do not have experience riding a motorcycle do not know how to operate one, and need to be taught the basics of it. It is hard for them to put themselves in the place of a motorcyclist when they do not know how to ride one, but much easier for them to put themselves in the place of the defendant, following the familiar procedures for driving a car. Concepts like maintaining speed to help maintain stability of the bike and laying the bike down are foreign concepts to most jurors and run contrary to their usual way of thinking. Riders know that laying the bike down is a means of escaping a catastrophic crash, but to most lay people that screams out excessive speed and loss of control over the bike.
• When motorcycle riders survive the crash – and many times, a crash results in a motorcycle wrongful death accident – the injuries they suffer are serious. Many times they involve serious fractures or loss of a limb. These injuries call for higher levels of compensation and need to be presented by a skilled advocate who knows how to show the long-term consequences of those injuries. Further, almost all motorcycle riders suffer “road rash” when they are thrown from their motorcycles. “Road rash” is one of these terms that does not do justice to how awful, painful, and disfiguring these injuries are. More than one client of mine has described the road rash as being more painful than the bones they broke in the same accident.
• Insurance companies know that juries are not always prepared to be fair to injured riders, so they also are prepared not to be fair to injured riders, either. Many times, insurance adjusters will pretend not to know how a motorcycle is ridden when they take recorded statements from rider in the hope of eliciting a poor description of the events from the injured rider. Unfortunately, injured riders too often decide to hire a lawyer after they learn that the insurance company is not going to treat them fairly. By that time, the insurance company has obtained enough evidence to hurt the injured rider’s case.

The smart advice to an injured motorcycle rider is to recognize that motorcycle accidents are not car accidents and that they should not be treated as something that can be easily handled on your own. Not every motorcycle accident case requires the help of a lawyer, but knowing that the insurance carriers are not likely to be fair to injured riders should guide injured riders in their dealings with an insurance company.

The Law Offices of
Barry G. Doyle, P.C.
5215 Old Orchard Road
Suite 710
Skokie, IL 60077
Phone: 312.263.1080
Fax: 312.263.0153

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