Motorcycle accidents are always scary, particularly when a motorcycle has collided with a larger vehicle like a car or truck. The injuries caused by an accident like this can be catastrophic and may leave you and your loved ones reeling. If this has happened to you,

Contacting an experienced auto accident lawyer with Suits Litigation Inc. may be an important step to recovering the total compensation you are due. 

If you are recovering from severe injuries, you may be spending prolonged time in the hospital or unable to go about your daily routines. Retaining a Sunnyvale motorcycle accident lawyer can provide you with peace of mind, knowing that someone else is dedicated to handling the legal part while you focus on getting your life back to normal. We have over ten years of practice dedicated to the Sunnyvale, California, community and are committed to fighting for your due compensation. 

Why You Should Have a Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

Navigating any kind of insurance claim or lawsuit can be challenging to do alone, particularly if you have sustained significant injuries. You may be accumulating hefty bills and forced to spend significant time going to and from doctor’s appointments or making phone calls trying to handle the situation. Retaining an attorney with Suits Litigation Inc. will bring over a decade of legal experience and education to your side. We handle our cases with the compassion and diligence they deserve to recover as much compensation for you as we can. Beyond peace of mind, there are many benefits we can offer. 

Communication

Accurate and clear communication is a requirement in any complex situation, and your attorney can help with that from every angle of your case. They will take over any negotiations with the insurance company and file motions in court. Our goal is to make this process as easy and straightforward as possible by handling the legal parts of your case and keeping you up to date on what is happening in your case. For many people, the uncertainty of the process can cause the most stress and anxiety. Working with our attorney can help you understand the legal process and stages of your case. We take client education seriously and want you to know what to expect in your case. 

Limiting Liability

The insurance company’s job is to protect its assets and save money. They will take anything you say to them, others, or on social media and try to use it to diminish or delegitimize your claims. Having an attorney will help minimize this risk. We can educate you on what may increase your liability, like posting on social media, and handle communication with the insurance company to keep them focused on negotiations regarding the facts at hand. 

Assessing Damages

After your Sunnyvale Motorcycle Accident, the insurance company will likely offer the lowest settlement number they feel they can get away with. This number may only include the physical and medical costs from the accident, not factoring in your lost wages or the toll that your emotional state may have taken on your ability to function in daily life. Our motorcycle injury attorney can work with you to evaluate the full extent of your costs and injuries. Due to our experience in personal injury law, we can sometimes allocate costs to damages you may not consider without an attorney. 

Common Motorcycle Accident Injuries

Injuries in motorcycle accidents are frequently severe. Even a small fall can mean life-threatening injuries. The California Office of Traffic Safety reports several hundred fatalities each year from motorcycle accidents. Motorcycle injuries tend to be much more severe than injuries to car occupants. A car is built with safety in mind and provides protection through its frame, seatbelts, and airbags. While helmets help significantly minimize the severity of injuries in motorcycle riders, there is only so much they can do in the event of an accident.  

Head, Face, and Neck Injuries

Neck injuries are common in any type of accident with a sudden stop. Most frequently, people experience whiplash, a soft tissue injury that can result in soreness, stiffness, and, in some cases, breathing difficulties. These injuries can also result in bulging discs that can cause prolonged pain and require rehabilitative therapy and sometimes surgical intervention to cope with.  

California law requires the use of Department of Transportation (DOT)-approved helmets. This law does not require the helmet to have full face coverage, and while a DOT-approved helmet use makes you three times more likely to survive a head injury if you are missing a face shield, it will not always protect your face. The resulting damage can be lacerations to the face or debris and injury to the eyes. 

Broken Bones

Broken bones from a motorcycle accident can be caused by an initial fall, the bike falling on you, or contact with the other vehicle. In mild cases, this may mean a cast for a few weeks, but in many cases, this may require surgical intervention to fully correct and encourage appropriate healing. Some of these injuries may be in extremities, but broken bones in the face are also not uncommon, particularly in riders who are not wearing a helmet with a face shield or not wearing a helmet at all. 

Road Rash

Road rash is yet another frequently seen injury from motorcycle accidents. Medically, this is commonly referred to as road rash and is assessed and categorized the same way burns are. Superficial or first-degree road rash may be some scrapes, while third and fourth-degree road rash can require debridement and skin crafts. 

These more severe cases of road rash can leave bone exposed, increasing the chances of infection and the need for hospitalization. Many times, the best possible prognoses will leave the person with significant scarring. The best way to prevent road rash in an accident is to always ride with protective gear.

Internal Bleeding

Internal bleeding can occur with any hard impact. This may happen at landing if you are thrown from your bike. This can also happen if you are caught under the other vehicle and dragged or have any blunt trauma to your torso. Internal bleeding is a medical emergency and can mean prolonged hospital stays or surgeries. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

A motorcycle accident is a scary experience, and for many, it can be traumatic, resulting in symptoms of or a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V Text Revision (DSM V-TR) states that a triggering event for PTSD need only be the actual or perceived threat of significant bodily harm or death. A motorcycle accident certainly presents a real threat of death. 

Death

Fatalities are unfortunately common in motorcycle accidents. The National Safety Council reports that California is among the top six states for motorcycle fatalities, coming in with 634. Motorcycle riders have very little protection in general and are especially vulnerable to collisions with vehicles. If someone else’s negligent driving has caused the death of a loved one, you may be eligible to file a wrongful death claim and should speak with a Suits Litigation Inc. attorney. 

Supporting Your Claim

Anything legal will require some kind of validation or support for your claim. When you work with our motorcycle accident attorney, they will advise you on what is needed to present your case best. Sometimes, this will be a legal document or medical records from the physicians or providers treating your injuries. 

Some of the things your attorney may advise be presented in support of your case are:

• Police report
• Witness statements
• Medical records
• Video footage
• Your helmet and clothing

Preserving Evidence

Part of your motorcycle accident attorney’s job is to gather evidence in support of your case. There are some things you can do from the beginning to help this process, even before you retain an attorney. However, you should always call a lawyer as soon as possible after an accident to discuss your options. 

Call 911

Calling 911 acts to preserve evidence by bringing police to the scene. This means they will write their own report about what happened, speak with you and the other driver, and take witness statements. All of which will be available to you and your motorcycle accident attorney in Sunnyvale. Additionally, police will typically write a citation to whoever is responsible, and this may further support your case by showing that another party is negligent. 

Medical Evaluation

You should always say yes to medical evaluation on the scene of the accident. If Emergency Medical Services have not been called to the scene for whatever reason, you should seek a medical evaluation immediately afterward. Doing so preserves evidence of your injuries, but it also protects your liability by not allowing the insurance company to claim that your injuries are not as severe as you are claiming because you didn’t feel you needed evaluation at the scene.

In stressful situations, our body releases large amounts of stress hormones. One such hormone is adrenaline, and it can frequently mask injuries by decreasing our experience of pain. Therefore, it may be that an injury does not fully present itself until after a couple of hours when your stress hormones drop back to more typical levels. A doctor may have a better idea of what to look for to identify injuries that may be hidden immediately following the accident. 

Exchange Information

There may come a point where you are relying on accounts from eyewitnesses. Your Sunnyvale motorcycle accident attorney may use contact information for witnesses to investigate further and take their statements. More importantly, you need to have the contact information for the other driver or drivers involved in the accident. You also need the driver’s insurance information to start the claim process. If you don’t get this at the scene of the accident, you can usually retrieve it from the police report. 

Take Photos

Eyewitness statements are notoriously unreliable. Witness testimony can be helpful at times, but little can support you, like pictures and video. Immediately after the accident, it can be invaluable to take photos of the vehicles, your bike, the area around the accident, and any injuries you may have. This will allow all parties a chance to see what happened. Among the photos you collect, you should take photos of your riding gear and helmet if at all possible. Seeing the damage to your helmet may provide more information on the accident and its impact on your head and body. The same is true of your riding gear. 

Establishing Negligence 

Establishing someone else’s negligence is the cornerstone of any personal injury case. The Cornell Law School states that your motorcycle injury lawyer in Sunnyvale will need to show at least four things to establish your right to compensation. These four things are:

• The defendant’s legal duty to you: Drivers have the legal obligation to follow traffic rules and drive in a way that promotes the safety of themselves and those around them
• A breach of that duty: Say the defendant ran a red light. This would be a breach of their duty to follow traffic laws
• Harm: You must establish that you sustained injury. In this example, we can call it nerve damage and road rash
• Proximate Cause: The defendant’s actions caused your injury
• Cause-in-fact: Without the defendant’s breach of duty, you would not have been injured. In our example, that means that if the defendant did not run a red light, they would not have hit you, and you would not have sustained road rash resulting in nerve damage. 

Every case is unique, and each has unique circumstances. If you feel that someone else’s negligence has caused your motorcycle accident and resulting injuries, you should seek consultation with an attorney. Speaking with them can help determine the next steps that feel appropriate to you.

Damages in your Sunnyvale Motorcycle Accident

Assessing damages is a key part of your claim. Once you have shown that someone else is responsible, you must determine how much you are owed in compensation. This will typically be negotiated with the insurance companies but may also be affected by a judge or jury if the case is taken to court. 

Most damages are broken up into three categories. These are based on the way they are assessed as well as their purpose. Some are easier to evaluate than others. 

Economic damages

Economic damages are based on specific costs that are incurred because of the accident. These damages tend to be easier to assess because they are determined based on invoices, receipts, and actual costs. Economic damages will typically include:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages
• Cost of support services
• Property damage
• Out-of-pocket expense 

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages may be more challenging to evaluate. It has been shown that motorcycle riders have a greater than 90% chance of being injured, and 75% of motorcycle accidents will result in severe injuries rather than minor ones. This means that the chances of significant impairment and emotional distress following an accident are high, and you deserve to be compensated. Rather than showing receipts to establish your costs, you may need more documentation. This documentation could be medical records, letters from doctors, or even testimony from friends and family regarding your condition.  

These damages can include:

• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Disfigurement
• Loss of consortium 
• Physical impairment

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages fall under the category of non-compensatory damages. This is because punitive damages are meant as a punishment for truly abhorrent behavior to deter that behavior in the future and not for compensation for the plaintiff. Punitive damages are determined to be appropriate by a jury. The jury also determines the amount that will be paid. Because these are set by the jury, you will not receive punitive damages if the case settles before your lawsuit goes to trial. 

California Insurance Requirements

One of the many factors that influence how your case progresses is insurance coverage. Policy limits can significantly affect the trajectory of a case, including whether it settles out of court or continues to trial. California, like any other state, has compulsory insurance laws that require a minimum coverage for all drivers. Per the California Department of Motor Vehicles(DMV), this required coverage consists of:

• $15,000 for injury or death to one person
• $30,000 for injury or death to more than one person
• $5,000 for damage to property

If someone is carrying the minimum financial responsibility required in the state of California, it may not cover all of your bills. Sometimes, you may have recourse in your insurance policy for underinsured drivers. However, you and your attorney may determine it is worthwhile to pursue legal action against the defendant personally. 

Call Us Today 

If you have been injured in a motorcycle accident caused by someone else, you should not have to navigate the legal process alone. Call Suits Litigation Inc. today for a complimentary consultation. During this consultation, we can discuss the legal options available so you can make an informed decision regarding your next steps. 

The recovery process can be arduous and fraught with stress and anxiety. By retaining our motorcycle accident attorney, you can have peace of mind knowing that the legal side is taken care of. We are known for our detailed communication with clients, so you can focus on healing knowing you will be in the loop regarding your case.