Were you injured in a bicycle accident? Don’t make these mistakes and ruin your injury case. Contact our Boise attorneys for a free review.
Choosing a Bicycle Accident Attorney
One of the things people often ask is, “How do I pick a bicycle attorney in Idaho?” It’s actually a unique question. There are basic issues involved related to picking a good personal injury attorney for your injury case, such as looking for a trial attorney with real trial experience who knows their way around the courtroom. What you want is a lawyer who will go to the courtroom because the insurance companies that you’re dealing with know that those lawyers will go to the courtroom in Idaho.
In a bike case, if you’ve been on your bike and injured on your bike, you want something else, as well. You want an attorney who knows his way around bicycles, who has an understanding of cycling and the special needs of cyclists and the special losses that cyclists have when they’ve been injured by the actions of a motorist. That’s another thing you want to look for when you’re searching for your Idaho bicycle accident lawyer. You want to look for an attorney who knows their way around bicycles and knows their way around cycling.
If you have any questions or you want to know anything further about looking for a bicycle accident attorney in Boise or anywhere in Idaho, just give our firm a call. We’re happy to talk to you about your claim.
Mistakes During a Bicycle Accident Case
People make some pretty straightforward standard mistakes when they have a bicycle accident injury case here in Idaho. It’s things we see regularly. Usually those mistakes are because the injured person is trying to be a decent person. They’re trying to treat everybody honestly and fairly and not make complaints. Often, they’ll admit that they did something when they really didn’t do anything wrong. They don’t realize that the insurance company is not there for them. You’re not in good hands if you’ve been injured by an All State driver, and State Farm is not your good neighbor if a State Farm-insured car has hit you on your bicycle. They’re looking to minimize the amount that they pay you, not take care of you.
One of the things people do wrong is they talk to the insurance company ahead of time without really preparing and thinking about it. When we’re in the trial process and we get ready to have a witness talk to the defense lawyer, we’ll spend hours and sometimes days getting the witness ready. If you haven’t spent your time thinking about what questions they’re going to ask you, and what they want to know and why they want to know it, then you’re going to make a mistake in talking to that insurance company representative.
Another thing people do wrong with some regularity is they don’t really get all the medical care they should or the follow-up they should. Sometimes, you just want to wave off the medical care, disregarding the doctor who said you should do this or you should have this follow-up therapy. If you’ve injured yourself – fallen off the roof of your house and done something to yourself – maybe that’s okay, but it’s very important in an insurance claim situation if you’ve been in a bicycle accident injury, that you follow up with that medical care and do what the doctor says. Why? Because that insurance company for the other side will want to use it against you if you admit you haven’t really taken care of the damages that you’ve incurred. They’ll say it’s your own darn fault that you’re feeling bad still.
Those are a couple of the major mistakes people make over the course of their bicycle accident claims that we have seen here in Idaho. If you have any particular questions, you want to talk about your case, just give us a call here at the firm. Any of us would be happy to talk to you.
How Bicycle Accidents Differ From Car Accidents
A lot of people wonder if bike accidents or bike wrecks are different from a car crash where two cars run into each other. The answer is they are somewhat different. One, the cyclist is often exposed to substantially greater injury because they are not protected by the metal cage of the car. There are different laws that apply to cyclists, too.
In Idaho, we have a whole group of road use laws that apply to cyclists. These laws can be used to help protect you, but the insurance companies and the defense lawyers who are hired by the insurance companies to protect the drivers who have hurt you will try to use some of those laws against you, so you have to be careful about the application of the various statutes that apply.
From the perspective of what your damages are, things are about the same as they would be with a car crash case. We can calculate what the scope of your injuries are, what your economic losses are, and what the pain and suffering or the non-economic components to your damages are of your bicycle accident injury case here in Idaho. You have to recognize that juries sometimes look at cyclists and say, “Hey, you took it upon yourself to be out there on the roadway,” so trying a bicycle accident case before an Idaho jury can sometimes be something that takes special skills and special understanding. You need an attorney with the ability to deal with the jury and persuade them that it wasn’t your fault that that car came from behind you and ran you over.
We know that jurors sometimes do have those types of views, so trying a bicycle accident injury case in Idaho can present unique risks that require high level trial lawyer skills. We’re proud to say, here at this firm, we bring those skills to bear. We’re happy to talk to you about your claim, whatever situation you’re in right now. If you have a bicycle accident injury case anywhere in Idaho, we’re happy to talk to you. Just give us a call and talk to one of us.
Contact our experienced Boise Bicycle Accident Lawyers at Hepworth Holzer today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
We are committed to helping individuals and families throughout Idaho navigate the world of personal injury litigation as quickly and efficiently as possible. Let us get results for you and your family.
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