Boise Bicycle Accident Attorneys

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.

One of the natural things people wonder about with bicycle cases is what the value of their claim is. “I’ve been injured by a driver or a bicycle product that was inappropriately manufactured. What am I going to recover for that?” That’s a natural question. The issue is you have to look at all the components.

There are some easy components to consider. We call those the economic losses – the lost wages or the cost of your medical expense, or even the cost of replacing your bicycle or the clothes you were wearing when you got hit by the car. Those things are pretty straightforward and we can evaluate those easily. There are more complex losses involved, however—the freedom that was taken from you to choose to go for a ride and the impacts that it’s had on you, for example. These are what we call non-economic damages. When you got hurt and were in the hospital, people don’t ask you, “Hey, how much did your medical care cost?” They ask you, “How are you doing? When are you going to get back to it? When are we going to see you on a ride again?” Those are the important things to help evaluate. Figuring those things out is complex. Everybody’s different. Everybody has a different lifestyle and different things that impact them and different ways that specific injuries have impacted them.

Evaluating a bicycle case is an art. It’s one of the things that we as practicing trial attorneys in Idaho work on. We work on these types of questions all the time when we’re trying to evaluate what we think a jury will do with your situation, and that’s something we have to bring to bear with our experience. We’re happy to talk to you about it. We probably can’t give you a value of your claim over the telephone, and if any lawyer actually wants to give you a value of your claim over the telephone, you should run away from that attorney. Talk to somebody who’s willing to do the work it takes to really understand what’s happened to you and really understand the value of your bicycle accident injury claim in Idaho. It can be different in Boise or Coeur d’Alene or Pocatello but we can handle them all. Give us a call. We’re happy to talk to you. We always like talking to cyclists.

When you’re involved in a bicycle accident, it’s natural to think, “Maybe I did something a little bit wrong. Even though that driver put me at much more risk, I should have stayed stopped. Maybe I have some responsibility for this injury accident I had. Can I even still bring a claim?” The short answer is yes, you can. Why is that? It’s because in the world of Idaho bicycle injury cases, Idaho operates using what’s called comparative responsibility or comparative fault. What that means is who has what share of responsibility for the accident?

The term lawyer’s use is the apportionment of liability or the apportionment of responsibility, and we speak about in percentages. We ask juries to do this all the time. Was the driver 100% at fault? Was the driver 75% at fault, and the cyclist 25% at fault? Are they both equally at fault, 50/50? Is it 60/40? There’s no magic calculation. It’s hard to evaluate, sometimes. This is a thing that an experienced quality trial lawyer can help you understand if you have a case where you think you may have some responsibility.

Give us a call. We’re happy to talk to you about apportionment of responsibility and the comparative fault components of your claim. We can help you figure out whether it’s a claim that you should still pursue, even though you might have done something a little bit wrong, if the driver did more wrong than you. We look forward to talking to you.

Cyclists are often surprised to learn that their own auto insurance can come into play if they’ve been injured by the negligent actions of a driver while they’re out riding their bike. There are various coverages that can come into play. You have to realize that not just the bad guy’s insurance but your own coverage, including your underinsured motorist coverage, comes into play.

What’s underinsured motorist coverage or uninsured motorist coverage? They’re related. They’re types of coverages that you can purchase for yourself that protect you from the actions of a negligent driver. If that negligent driver doesn’t have enough insurance and causes substantial injury to you and if you’ve purchased underinsured motorist coverage, you have protection against those losses. It’s really protection for yourself.

Much like your helmet is protection for yourself or riding with a camera can be protection for you, your underinsured motorist coverage is protection for you. That same applies with uninsured motorist coverage. Uninsured motorist coverage is for situations in which the driver has absolutely no liability coverage at all and you have purchased coverage to protect yourself. The reality is, both underinsured and uninsured motorist coverages are very cheap here in Idaho. This Idaho insurance does a great job of taking care of you.

Our recommendation is that you look at your budget, and what you can reasonably afford, and buy as much underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage. This is particularly true for cyclists in Idaho but buy as much coverage as you can reasonably afford within your own budget because you’re taking care of yourself from the actions of other people who have been negligent or who drive dangerously. If you have a question about insurance coverage, just give us a call. We’re happy to talk to you here at the firm.