Common Mistakes in a Motorcycle Accident Case

Answer:

What are the common mistakes you see people make if they’re involved in motorcycle accidents? There’s a few. The first that people do is understand that the person who is at fault, if they have insurance coverage, they are notified fairly quickly of the fact that their insured has been in an accident and is going to be potentially pursued in a way of a personal injury claim. The insurance company then starts the process of gearing up for the claim. One of the things they will do, it’s right out of the claims, adjustor or examiner’s handbook, is to seek to obtain a recorded statement from you. You have no reason to do this. It’s a mistake we see happen a lot. They sound very nice when they’re calling. “I just want to have this in my file. Just need to know what happened from your perspective.” It all sounds very reasonable. The reality is they’re doing that for a reason that doesn’t benefit you at all. It’s only to allow them to gear up for the subsequent claim to be. Here’s an example you see a lot. Somebody says something during that recorded statement. It gets transcribed. Later on down the road, they say something that sounds a little different. The insurance company then tries to use that statement, your own statement, against you. They never use it when the answers are the same. It really provides you with no benefit at all.

Another mistake you see often is that people that have been injured in motorcycle accidents, if the other side is at fault, they automatically think, well, they have to pay my medical expenses. Sure, that sounds right, but in Idaho, under Idaho law, they don’t have the obligation to do that until there’s a settlement or there’s been a judgment entered against them. If you have your own health coverage, do not just rely on the defense to pay for your medical expenses because it’s rare that they will do that. Your own insurance company, however, is obligated to pay those. Don’t get your credit in trouble by just waiting around for the defendant’s insurance company to get around to paying your medical expenses. They don’t have that obligation. That’s a very big mistake.

Another mistake is not getting a lawyer soon enough. Most lawyers would tell you is that you should get legal counsel on board as soon as possible because the trail of evidence grows cold with each passing day. The physical evidence that’s at the accident scene or whatever else there is needs to be preserved. Having a good attorney on board right from the beginning is helpful to assure that there will not be any evidence lost and that you won’t be taken advantage of by the insurance company. Because the moment you hire me, for example, or our law firm, the other side doesn’t have the right to talk to you anymore. They have to talk to me. There’s lots of benefits to retaining counsel very early on. When you’re talking about retaining counsel in such a case, you, of course, are looking for a type of lawyer that has actually had the track record of success in pursuing such claims, has actually been in front of Idaho juries making such claims for damages in motorcycle accidents.

Our firm has been pursuing such claims over 50 years at this point. It takes the type of lawyer that can deal with the insurance companies of the world who also, of course, have very experienced counsel. In motorcycle wrecks, the insurance company are oftentimes very hardnosed about blaming the motorcyclist for the accident, oftentimes under circumstances which don’t justify it at all. If you have such a claim, please feel free to call any of the other lawyers at our firm. We all work together here. We have a lot of legal horsepower. We all have a lot of legal experience in front of juries actually with getting successful results.