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When you get hurt in an auto accident, you can typically bring a case against the at-fault driver under Indiana law. But how does this apply when you aren’t even in a car? When can cyclists sue?
The same rules apply to drivers, passengers, cyclists, pedestrians, and essentially anyone involved in a car accident: when someone causes a crash, you can sue them. If they have insurance, this will typically pay instead of them having to pay out of pocket. You do not need to have insurance of your own to bring a case, and cyclists are not expected to have insurance anyway. It is appropriate to bring a case if you have suffered any injuries resulting in hospital bills or time away from work, but you need to prove the defendant’s fault to succeed in your case.
For a free case evaluation, call Wruck Paupore’s Indiana personal injury lawyers at (219) 322-1166.
Yes. You do not have to be one of the drivers to file a car accident claim.
Lawsuits are filed all the time by passengers, pedestrians, bystanders, and, of course, cyclists. The fact that you were injured in an accident that someone else caused is enough to give you grounds to sue; you do not need to be another driver on the road.
Most bike accident injury cases are based on “negligence.” This means you have to show the defendant breached a legal duty they owed, resulting in your injuries and damages.
A legal duty is a requirement you are expected to follow under the law. There are many situations where the only duties would be to refrain from intentionally injuring someone else or to act reasonably in a given situation.
With auto accident cases, there are plenty of other duties present in the traffic code. For example, you have to follow the speed limit, you cannot drive drunk, and you have to signal before turns. All of these are legal duties.
If another driver caused a crash by breaching one of these duties, then they can be held responsible. Many bicycle accidents involve drivers who committed one of these common violations:
Other violations or unreasonable acts behind the wheel – such as failing to give a cyclist space – could also constitute negligence.
You must prove that the other driver’s actions actually caused your crash. This is to say that the accident would not have happened if it weren’t for what they did.
If someone else caused the accident, you would sue them instead, such as a pedestrian jumping in your path or another cyclist forcing you out of the bike lane. If the accident was unavoidable, no matter what anyone did, then you might have no grounds to sue.
The defense will generally try to shift the blame to you, but they need to prove you were over 50% at fault to stop the case.
You must have damages to sue for an injury. You cannot sue for near-miss accidents that cause no harm.
Physical injuries themselves always come with “general damages,” such as physical pain, but you can also claim monetary damages for the economic harms, such as medical bills, lost wages, and property damage.
In Indiana, we use a car insurance system known as an “at-fault” or “tort” system. This means that the at-fault driver uses their liability insurance to cover the damages that victims face in a crash.
Whether you file a car insurance claim or sue, the defendant’s insurance should be the one paying for the majority of the damages they caused.
If you drive a car and have car insurance, you may wonder if it can cover other crashes where you were on foot or on a bike. Because we use an at-fault system, you usually go after the defendant’s insurance for damages. This means that your insurance is not typically going to cover anything, even if you were in a car, let alone if you were on a bike.
However, you might have add-on policies on your car insurance that might cover you in other auto crashes, so talk to your Indiana bike accident lawyer and check your insurance policy.
Any time you suffer injuries serious enough to cause one of these issues, you should consider a lawsuit to recover damages:
Indiana law gives accident victims 2 years to file most claims. There may be exceptions for people injured as minors and in other specific circumstances.
You should call our Indiana bike accident lawyers as soon as you are able to. In the immediate aftermath of your accident, you should call 911, report the accident, get medical care, take photos, get contact info at the scene, and then follow up with any necessary medical care.
After that, a lawyer should essentially be your next call. Any delays before calling a lawyer will become delays in getting payment for your injuries and damages.
Cycling laws can be tricky, and you might be surprised to find that you committed a violation yourself. This might be considered a contributing factor in causing the crash, but it does not necessarily take away the defendant’s share of the blame.
As long as your fault was 50% or less, you can still sue the at-fault driver for their share of damages. For example, if you were riding the wrong way down the street, but they turned without signaling while going 80, it might still work out that they share a majority of the blame, and you should still consider suing.
For your free case assessment, call Wruck Paupore’s Indiana bicycle accident attorneys at s(219) 322-1166.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
Contact Us:
Wruck Paupore P.C.
Injury Lawyers
275 Joliet St. Suite #250
Dyer, IN 46311
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