Newport Beach Bicycle Accident Lawyer

Newport Beach Bicycle Accident Attorney

While drivers and passengers in motorized vehicles have all kinds of safety mechanisms in place to protect them in the event of a crash, bicyclists have only small plastic helmets. As a result, bike crashes can have devastating consequences. If you’ve been involved in a crash on your bike, you can work with a Newport Beach bicycle accident lawyer to recover compensation for your injuries and other damages.

Trust Your Interests to Easton & Easton

Our dedicated Newport Beach personal injury lawyer team has been working with clients to protect their interests when serious injuries disrupt their careers and financial stability for years. In that time, we’ve handled countless bike accident cases and have become intimately familiar with bicycle accident laws. Let Easton & Easton leverage our knowledge, skill, and experience in litigating high-value cases to get you the results you need and deserve

Reasons to Hire a Bicycle Accident Lawyer

In 2023, 145 bicyclists in California were struck and killed by vehicles. From 2020 to 2024, an average of 2.27 bicyclists per 100,000 residents were killed on Orange County roads. In 2024, 118 bicyclists were seriously injured, and 11 were killed in our county. If you’ve been injured in a bicycle crash or you’ve lost a loved one, you can hire a bicycle accident lawyer to help you file a claim against the person responsible for the accident.

Your Newport Beach bicycle accident attorney can help you handle the details of your case so that you can focus on healing from your injuries. They can tackle everything from mundane details like filing paperwork and keeping track of deadlines to major tasks like negotiating with insurance companies and litigating your case in court, should they be unable to come up with a fair settlement agreement in negotiations.

Hiring an attorney is the most effective way to improve your odds of a successful outcome in your bicycle accident case.

Common Causes of Bicycle Accidents

In most bicycle accident cases, the driver of the motorized vehicle that hit the bicyclist is at fault. However, bicyclists can also contribute to their own crash risk. Some of the most common causes of bicycle accidents caused by both motorists and bicyclists include:

• Speeding
• Distracted driving
• Driving while intoxicated
• Failing to ride in designated bike lanes
• Riding into oncoming traffic

Most legal claims arise from motor vehicle drivers not seeing bicyclists or failing to accurately judge the speed at which they are traveling, and acting accordingly. Accidents often occur on busy roads such as the Pacific Coast Highway.

Common Injuries Sustained in Bicycle Accidents

Bicycle accidents often lead to serious injuries. Some of the most common ones include:

• Back injuries. Herniated discs and back sprains are common in bicycle accidents. Some back injuries require surgery and long-term physical therapy.
• Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Even when cyclists are wearing helmets, they can still sustain TBIs when they suffer severe blows to the head. TBIs can leave victims with permanent impairments, including physical, cognitive, and emotional problems.
• Broken bones. It’s common for bicyclists to suffer broken arms, legs, wrists, or ankles during an accident involving a motor vehicle.
• Lacerations and contusions. Even if your crash was minor, there’s a good chance that you sustained lacerations and contusions that required medical treatment.
• Whiplash. Whiplash can occur due to any type of accident, including bicycle accidents. It happens when an accident victim’s neck is stretched too far in one direction. Whiplash usually heals on its own in a few days or weeks.
• Spinal cord injuries. Spinal cord injuries are some of the most serious injuries that can be incurred during a bicycle collision. Depending on where the damage lies and how severe it is, you could experience anything from pain or numbness in your extremities to full paralysis.

If you’ve suffered serious injuries that have left you with a lifelong disability or disfigurement, you may be entitled to significant damages. Whether your crash involved a vehicle collision or a pedestrian accident in Newport Beach, be sure to include all of your current and future medical expenses on your insurance claim.

How to Prove Negligence in a Bicycle Accident

If you’ve been involved in a crash, your lawyer needs to prove that the driver who hit you caused it. This requires demonstrating that they were negligent. To prove negligence, you’ll need to show four things:

1. Duty. The driver had a duty of care to exercise caution while behind the wheel.
2. Breach. A driver breaches this duty of care when they violate local traffic laws or drive recklessly.
3. Causation. The breach of duty must have directly led to your accident.
4. Damages. You must have suffered injuries and other losses as a result of the accident.

You don’t have to prove that the driver was 100% responsible for the crash in order to recover compensation for any harm you sustained. In California, the courts follow a pure comparative negligence rule that allows accident victims to seek recovery even if they were 99% at fault for their injuries.

If you are determined to hold some or most of the fault for the accident, your final settlement amount may be decreased significantly. Ask your attorney what to expect based on the percentage of fault you have been assigned by the court.

How Bicyclists Can Be Liable for Their Accidents

In some cases, bicycle accident claims are very cut and dry. Motorists hit bicyclists because they weren’t paying enough attention, and the bicyclists were doing nothing wrong. In many cases, though, bicyclists are determined to hold some degree of the fault for their accidents.

Cyclists must follow the same rules of the road as motor vehicle drivers. They must respect the right-of-way, stop at red lights, and use proper hand signals when turning. Some situations that could leave cyclists holding full or partial liability for an accident include:

• Riding through an intersection during a red light
• Failing to use designated bike lanes
• Not honoring the right-of-way
• Riding against the flow of traffic

In these cases, you may not be entitled to compensation, or your final settlement amount may be significantly reduced. Share your concerns with your attorney if any of these circumstances apply.

Steps to Take Following a Bicycle Accident

There are certain steps you should take directly following a bicycle accident to protect your health and legal rights. You should:

• Call 911. Call the police immediately to report the accident. The police should send an investigating officer to the scene. That officer should investigate the accident, talk to eyewitnesses, check to see if the driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and put all of their findings into a police report. The police report could be critical in proving your case.
• Seek medical care. If you’re offered medical treatment at the scene by emergency medical services, accept it. If you’re not, go to a local hospital like Hoag Hospital Newport Beach to be fully evaluated right away.

Emergency room physicians can run diagnostic tests to determine the nature and extent of your injuries and document them in your medical record. You’ll need proof of these injuries to recover compensation for both medical expenses and non-economic damages like pain and suffering.

• File an insurance claim. You’ll need to file an insurance claim with the driver’s carrier. Don’t automatically accept any settlement offer made by the insurer, though. They have a reputation for offering low claims that don’t cover 100% of accident victims’ damages to people without legal representation.
• Hire a lawyer. You should speak with a bicycle accident attorney as soon as possible after your accident. You may even want to contact a lawyer before you file your insurance claim. Reviewing what to do after an accident in Newport Beach can help protect your rights from day one.

Working with a lawyer protects your legal rights and helps you make sure your claim is handled correctly from the start. Your lawyer can also negotiate a fair settlement with the insurance company or, if necessary, take it to court to get you the money you deserve.

The Importance of Gathering and Preserving Evidence

If you are able to move around safely following the accident without jeopardizing your health or causing yourself substantial pain, you can take the time while you’re waiting for the police to arrive to gather evidence. That evidence can include:

• Photos. Use your phone to photograph everything, including the accident scene, nearby traffic signals or signs, the damage to your bicycle and helmet, and your visible injuries.
• Witness information. Witness statements can be very valuable. The police should collect information from witnesses, but you can ask for their contact information, as well. That way, your attorney can interview them to find out if their testimony could support your claim.
• Physical evidence. You should not throw away or repair any equipment damaged during the crash. Keep torn clothing, your damaged bicycle, and your helmet until these items can be examined by a professional.

Your attorney may also be able to help you gather evidence that could help you build a stronger claim. There may have been surveillance cameras that captured footage of the crash, for example, and that footage could be subpoenaed during the discovery process. Information from the driver’s phone records and their event data recorder can also be invaluable, particularly in complex truck accident cases involving commercial vehicles.

Damages Available in Bicycle Accidents

If you can prove that another party caused your accident, you may be able to seek several types of damages. They include:

• Economic damages. These include medical expenses, property damage, lost wages, and loss of future income.
• Non-economic damages. This category of damages encompasses the human cost of accidents. The losses are more subjective and can include physical pain and emotional distress, disfigurement, and the inability to enjoy life.
• Punitive damages. It’s rare for courts to assign punitive damages in bicycle accident cases, but this may happen if the driver was acting maliciously or with extreme disregard for others’ safety.

FAQs

Who Is Usually at Fault if a Bicycle Is Involved in an Accident?

Who is at fault if a bicycle is involved in an accident varies. Drivers are often considered at fault in these collisions, either due to negligence or the breaking of traffic laws. Common examples of when a driver might be at fault include right hook accidents, dooring, failures to yield, and encroaching on bike lanes. Riders can also be at fault if they ride against traffic, ignore traffic signals, make sudden, unannounced movements, or ride without proper visibility.

How Much Compensation Do You Get for a Bicycle Accident?

How much compensation you get for a bicycle accident varies depending on the circumstances of the accident. Your final settlement amount should be higher if you sustained serious injuries that could have a lasting impact on the rest of your life, and you were determined not to be at fault for the crash that caused those injuries. Shared fault and less severe injuries can lead to lower settlements.

Who Is at Fault When a Cyclist Gets Doored?

When a cyclist gets doored, it’s usually the driver or passenger who opens the car door who is at fault. Under CVC 22517, it’s illegal to open a door on the side of a moving vehicle unless the driver or passenger has checked first. In certain circumstances, cyclists can share liability for dooring accidents. This may be the case if you were riding against traffic, distracted, traveling at an unsafe speed, or riding at night without lights.

How Much Compensation Can You Get for Stress and Anxiety?

How much compensation you can get for stress and anxiety depends on several factors. The first is whether you have a medical diagnosis from a mental health professional. The second is how much your economic damages were worth. The third is the severity of your physical injuries. Finally, your overall compensation could be reduced proportionally by your assigned percentage of fault if you are found to be partially liable for the accident.

Your Newport Beach Bicycle Accident Lawyer

If you’ve been injured while riding your bike, you may be able to seek compensation for any damages you’ve suffered with the help of a Newport Beach bicycle accident lawyer. You can trust the team here at Easton & Easton to help. We’ve handled countless bicycle accident claims and know what it takes to litigate complex injury cases.

We’ve recovered over $2 billion for our clients. However, past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case is different and must be evaluated on its own merits. Let us help you get the compensation you deserve. Contact us to schedule a consultation.

Newport Beach, CA Bicycle Accident Legal Resources

• Orange County Superior Court – Harbor Justice Center & Civil Filings
• California Highway Patrol – Collision Report Request (Form CHP 190)
• Newport Beach Police Department – Traffic Collision Records Request
• California Office of Traffic Safety – Bicycle & Pedestrian Safety Data